16 Amendments of Ieke van den BURG related to 2007/2238(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas long-term investments of hedge funds and private equity can play an important positive role in the European economy by increasing Europe's competitiveness and contributing to job creation,
Amendment 2 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas hedge funds and private equity investment strategies are often based on significant financial risk-taking and high leverage, which give rise to financial stability concerns,
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas specific Community legislation concerning hedge funds or private equity does not exist,
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas self-regulation of hedge funds and private equity is insufficient; whereas principle-based regulation is an appropriate approach to regulating financial markets as it is better able to keep up with market developments than product-specific regulation,
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas, the current financial crisis has highlighted a lack of transparency and whereas it is recognised that there is a need to enhance transparancy at different levels; whereas while transparency is vital for a functioning market, it must be purposive in relation to the target group; whereas transparency that is not purposive will have adverse effects on market stability through herding and predatory trading, and risks destroying the entire alternative investment business model based on innovative trading strategies,
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Recital E a (new)
Recital E a (new)
Ea. whereas the aggregated effects of the behaviour of hedge funds and private equity can lead to systemic risks; whereas financial market supervisors lack a complete overview of the activities of hedge funds and private equity; whereas no appropriate legal instruments enabling market authorities to stop hedge funds and private equity from harming the stability of financial markets currently exist,
Amendment 8 #
Draft opinion
Recital E b (new)
Recital E b (new)
Eb. whereas the remuneration systems for hedge funds and private equity managers may give rise to perverse incentives leading to irresponsible risk-taking,
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Recital E c (new)
Recital E c (new)
Ec. whereas the current structure of corporate governance includes imbalances in terms of ownership, control, transparency, supervision, accountability and information; whereas hedge funds and private equity potentially affect the level of transparency of the operational management in a negative way,
Amendment 10 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Notes that there is a body of Community legislation concerning financial markets that directly or indirectly, and only to some extent, applies to hedge funds and private equity; emphasises that most of that legislation is relatively recent and that its full impact cannot therefore be assessed yet; consequently, calls on the Member States and the Commission to ensure its consistent implementation and application;
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that, in addition to existing legislation, the hedge fund and private equity industries have produced their own voluntary standards of best practice; supports these initiatives and takes the viewbut stresses that such a soft-law approach is appropriateinsufficient for the regulation of the two sectors because industry-initiated standards can keep up with market developments better than heavy regulation and are more likelythey are non-binding and do not prevent less responsible players in the industry from taking excessive risks in order to get higher returns from investments; urges thane Community legislation to impose a certain degree of global control, particularly over market players domiciled off-shoreission to initiate proposals that are principle-based along the lines of the Lamfalussy process, so they can keep up with market developments;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Calls on the Commission to investigate the possibilities of regulating off-shore market players globally;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to consider extending the definition of the “prudent person” principle in such a way as to require investors to verify that the alternative investment funds in which they invest also abide by the industry's best practice standards;
Amendment 18 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Calls on the Commission to study the possibility of requiring hedge fund and private equity industries' bodies to notify the Committee of European Securities Regulators of best practice standards as well as any substantive changes made thereto; considers that a public and harmonised database thus established could serve as a point of reference for investors;
Amendment 20 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Takes the view that, in order to satisfy the need to monitor market activity for supervisory purposes, all necessary information on hedge fund holdings and lending should be made available to competent supervisory authorities via prime brokers; stresses that the information requirements should not be such as to place an excessive burden on prime brokers and that the national supervisory authorities should aim, where necessary and/national supervisory authorities should aim to harmonise their requirements in order to avoid gold-plating and regulatory appropriate, to harmonise their requirementsrbitrage and to promote a truly integrated financial market;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Recognises that excessive leverage may pose risks to the stability of financial markets; takes the view, however, that risk is part of those markets and that it must be left to participants in the markets concerned to assess the appropriate level of risk to take; does not support, therefore, the idea of setting a legal maximum level of leveragecalls on the Commission to put forward proposals to limit the level of possible leverage in order to prevent the spreading of systemic risks; urges the Commission to establish a set of legal instruments that would enable supervisors to intervene and make the financial markets function for the benefit of the real economy;
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Notes that the current structure of corporate governance is imbalanced; calls on the Commission and industry to establish codes of conduct that would enhance the competences of important gatekeepers such as supervisory boards, works councils and accountants, and to improve the working methodology of analysts and rating agencies.