International Herald Tribune – The German finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, said Tuesday that turmoil in credit markets might have made officials in the United States and Britain more willing toconsider a code of conduct for hedge funds.
“In light of the current crisis, I could imagine that the hesitant behavior by the U.S. and Great Britain will change even before our next meeting,” Steinbrück said, referring to a meeting of the Group of 7 finance ministers in Washington in October.
Germany will continue to push for a voluntary code of conduct by the hedge fund industry, Steinbrück said in a speech prepared for a banking conference in Frankfurt.
Moves to improve what he called the sound practices currently in place are going in the right direction, he said, naming a June 19 agreement by hedge funds to assess the need for self-regulation and President George W. Bush’s working group on financial markets.
