Bloomberg – The Group of 20 leaders will agree on new rules to rein in hedge funds and may more than double the resources of the International Monetary Fund, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said.

“There is a recognition that some hedge funds are systemically important,” Darling told Bloomberg Television in an interview today in London. “There will be an agreement there. Where you’ve got something that’s systemically important like a hedge fund, you need to know what’s going on there.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has struggled to allay the concerns of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as they press for a crackdown on traders and lenders. Darling’s comments suggest consensus is now emerging among G-20 leaders in the London talks on measures to combat the financial crisis.

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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge fund regulation was the hot topic at this past weekend’s meeting of European Union leaders, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted a summit in Berlin discussing ways to curtail the financial crisis.

Merkel joined leaders from The Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, England, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg to agree on a unified EU stance prior to London’s G20 Summit in April, where all the world’s leaders will come together to discuss the financial crisis.

"We have today underscored our conviction that all financial markets, products and participants must be subject to appropriate oversight or regulation, without exception and regardless of their country of domicile,” said Merkel.  “This is especially true for those private pools of capital, including hedge funds, that may present a systemic risk," she said, although the details of how hedge funds should be regulated still need to be worked out.  

English Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also expressed his belief that there should be tighter regulation, despite the fact that London is Europe’s premier center for hedge funds.

"Together we will support oversight of under-regulated sectors and I also support proper disclosure and transparency of hedge funds," Brown said earlier this month.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed, saying, “We want regulation of hedge funds, and we’re not going to put up any longer with the bonus reward system of traders and bankers.”

The EU leaders are scheduled to meet again this Sunday.

Julie Scuderi
Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: julie@hedgeco.net

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Tax-news.com – Endeavouring to assuage fears and re-establish public confidence in the wake of one-day nationwide strikes, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that local business tax or ‘taxe professionnelle’ will finally be abolished in 2010.

Expressing his determination to uphold his predecessor Jacques Chirac’s promise to end the highly controversial tax, President Sarkozy has underlined the importance of the measure – vital to maintaining industry in France and ultimately to the preservation of jobs, despite a total cost to the state estimated at EUR8bn.

Created in 1975 – ironically by the then Prime Minister Chirac – business tax forms one of four direct local taxes collected by councils, and represents around half of their tax revenue.

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