Times Online – They must think it’s Christmas in Geneva. Alistair Darling delivered an early present last week by slapping a 50 per cent tax rate on top earners.

Highly paid but footloose financiers are now betting when the rate will go up to 60 or 70 per cent and are digging out those brochures from the Swiss inward investment agency.

As if that wasn’t enough, here come our friends at the European Commission with proposals for the regulation of hedge funds and private equity funds.

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Guardian Unlimited – Aspects of a planned European Commission directive to regulate hedge funds do not go far enough and must change to protect investors, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said in remarks published on Monday.

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Tags: backdrop, christine lagarde, draft directive, economy minister, european commission, european commission directive, french economy, guardian, institutions, investors, surveillance system, systemic risks

Stuff – The drafting of the European Commission’s directive on hedge funds was a rush job without proper consultation and looks to have been subject to "undue political pressure," an industry body said.

The Alternative Investment Management Association said it was concerned about the way the Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive, covering hedge funds, was drafted. The publication of the draft directive has been postponed from this week to Wednesday, April 29.

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Tags: alternative-investment-management-association, april-29, draft directive, european commission, investment fund managers, investment management association, proper-consultation, rush job

Reuters – The drafting of the European Commission’s directive on the hedge fund industry has been "rushed through" without adequate consultation, industry body the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) said.

"We are also concerned that the process of drafting the directive has been subjected to undue political pressure," AIMA’s executive director Florence Lombard said in a statement published on Thursday.

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Tags: adequate consultation, aima, alternative-investment-management-association, european commission, executive-director, florence, investment management association, lombard, reuters

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – In an effort to makes major changes to the EU financial regulation services, the European Commission (EC) has launched ‘Driving European Recovery’, a consultation  on major structural changes to European financial services and markets regulation.

The EC are looking for investors such as hedge funds and other interested parties to interview and submit comments before April 10th, when the EC intends to publish its proposals on the future of the EU supervisory architecture.

The Commission endorses the key principles set out in the recent de Larosière report and calls for a supervisory system combining stronger oversight at EU level with maintaining a key role for national supervisors.

The Commission will propose an ambitious new reform programme, designed to deliver “responsible and reliable financial markets for the future”.

The reform program will present a supervisory framework that detects potential risks early, deals with them effectively before they have an impact, and meets the challenge of complex international financial markets.

The Commission will present a European financial supervision package before the end of May 2009, according to a statement, fill gaps where European or national regulation is insufficient or incomplete, based on a ‘safety first’ approach and  improve risk management in financial firms and align pay incentives with sustainable performance.

Among other proposals to be revealed in May, the EC will, "Ensure more effective sanctions against market wrongdoing."

Alex Akesson

Tags: accredited-investors, ec, european commission, financial supervision, gaps, hedgeco, international financial markets, key role, other interested parties, oversight, palm-beach, risk management, sanctions, supervisory framework, supervisory system, sustainable performance, wrongdoing