Part IX Legal and Conduct Risk Management, 30 Lawyers’ Responsibility for the Management of Legal and Conduct Risk

Author(s):  
Mccormick Roger ◽  
Stears Chris

The importance of managing legal risk effectively has increased following the recent financial crisis. As the modern regulatory regime for financial markets (global and domestic) continues to evolve, legal risk management techniques must evolve with it. The pressure to attach more importance to ethics and culture within financial institutions will also have an effect on how lawyers do their job. Rightly or wrongly, the responsibility for checking that proper governance principles are observed is bound to fall on their shoulders to some extent. This chapter discusses the role of lawyers and the legal department in legal risk management, opinions and similar documents, document retention, and clarity of lawyer roles.

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-16
Author(s):  
Sayed M. Fadel ◽  
Jasim Al-Ajmi

The objectives of this study are to determine 1) the effect of global economic and financial crisis on risk management, 2) the severity of different types of risk facing Islamic banks, 3) the risk levels of Islamic financial modes, 4) risk assessment techniques, and 5) risk management techniques. The structure of the balance sheet, the nature of Islamic finance instruments and funding sources have a great impact on the level of risk exposure of banks and the instruments. Credit risk is found to be the most serious risk, followed by liquidity risk, market risk and operational risk, in descending order of importance. As for the riskiness of Islamic financing modes, mudarabah is perceived to be the riskiest, followed by musharakah, while murabahah ranked as the least risky mode. Moreover, Islamic banks are found to use traditional risk management techniques more than sophisticated measurements. They also adopt risk mitigation techniques that are used by conventional banks in preference to techniques that are considered to be unique to Islamic banks. This paper is the first to study the risk management practices of Islamic banks operating in Bahrain. It also provides evidence about these practices after the global financial crisis that affected all countries, including Bahrain.


Author(s):  
Alev Dilek Aydin

This study aims to assess the role of accounting and auditing in the recent financial crisis. After each crisis, there have been serious discussions concerning the reasons behind those crises. However, no consensus has yet been achieved until now. In this context, the analysis of the relationships among financial crisis, accounting, and auditing is of utmost importance in better evaluating the structural reasons behind the crisis. There are several points that this chapter aims to analyze to indicate the contributions of accounting and auditing to the recent global financial crisis. These points are: impacts of disregarding the main principles of accounting, the wide use of fair value accounting over cost-based accounting, incorrect and misleading financial and audit reports, applications of creative accounting, and lack of transparency and weaknesses of the auditing process. The debates generally concentrate on the use of fair value (mark-to-market) accounting in the financial reports as opposed to the historical cost method. It should be emphasized that accounting is very important as a key mechanism of market economies, because of its crucial role in the functioning of the markets in accordance with the public interest. The chapter concludes with several suggestions by taking the fact into consideration that accounting and auditing systems should be revised for the better protection of interests of the third parties such as investors, potential investors, and the state.


Author(s):  
Okan Acar ◽  
Aslı Beyhan Acar

Risk management as a very rapid emerging subject has been affected by several happenings in the world. There are many studies covering risk definition, risk types, and risk management, plus there are many contemporary approaches in order to calculate the risk incurred by the companies due to their transactions. In the modern business life, since the transactions have become very fast and their risk exposure increases, the companies, especially the financial institutions, started to use new techniques to measure the probable effects of the risks that they have taken while undertaking the transactions. In this chapter, the authors show two techniques as the contemporary approaches to risk management. These are operations research and statistics. They know that these two concepts are very detailed and sophisticated tools, which require software for better results. The banks have been investing in these solutions, and they are designing new organizations to handle these issues. Thus, the authors introduce these techniques very briefly with using some banking practices for better understanding.


Author(s):  
Alan N. Rechtschaffen

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke classified derivatives as a “vulnerability” of the financial system that led to the financial crisis. He explained that derivatives concentrated risk within particular financial institutions and markets without sufficient regulatory oversight. The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—Dodd-Frank—constituted a seismic shift in the regulation of financial institutions and markets in a massive effort to address regulatory shortcomings in derivatives markets. This chapter discusses the Dodd-Frank regulatory regime. Topics covered include the Dodd-Frank and derivatives trading; jurisdiction and registration; clearing, exchange, capital and margin, and reporting requirements; analysis of the provisions of Dodd-Frank on derivatives trading; rationale behind the exemptions and exclusions; the Lincoln Rule; Futures Commission Merchants; and criticisms of Dodd-Frank's derivatives trading provisions.


Author(s):  
David P. Stowell ◽  
Theron McLarty

Family members knew something was very wrong when Adolf Merckle, who had guided the family holding company, VEM Vermogensverwaltung GmbH, through dozens of successful investments, left the house one afternoon in January 2009 and failed to return. That night their fears were confirmed when a German railway worker located Merckle's body near a commuter train line near his hometown of Blaubeuren, about a hundred miles west of Munich. It was no secret that the recent financial crisis had taken a toll on Merckle's investments. He was known in Germany as a savvy investor, but had lost hundreds of millions of Euros after being caught on the wrong side of a short squeeze of epic proportions involving Volkswagen stock. This was not the only large bet against that company's stock. A number of hedge funds, including Greenlight Capital, SAC Capital, Glenview Capital, Tiger Asia, and Perry Capital, lost billions of Euros in a few hours based on their large short positions in Volkswagen's stock following the news on October 26, 2008, that Porsche AG had obtained a large long synthetic position in Volkswagen stock through cash-settled options. In the next two days, this short squeeze produced a fivefold increase in Volkswagen's share price, as demand for shares from hedge funds exceeded the supply of borrowable shares.This case focuses on the massive equity derivative positions entered into by Porsche in relation to Volkswagen stock and by TCI and 3G in relation to CSX stock. Students will learn how equity exposure can be created without buying stock and without prior disclosure. The role of regulators, courts, and investment banks that facilitate these transactions is also explored.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-321
Author(s):  
Iris H-Y Chiu

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the trajectory of legal reforms is likely to turn towards more transparency regulation. This article argues that transparency regulation will take on a new role of surveillance as intelligence and data mining expand in the wholesale financial sector, supporting the creation of designated systemic risk oversight regulators.The role of market discipline, which has been acknowledged to be weak leading up to the financial crisis, is likely to be eclipsed by a more technocratic governance in the financial sector. In this article, however, concerns are raised about the expansion of technocratic surveillance and whether financial sector participants would internalise the discipline of regulatory control. Certain endemic features of the financial sector will pose challenges for financial regulation even in the surveillance age.


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