Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011

Lord Myners Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I support both the Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011 and the Investment Bank (Amendment of Definition) Order 2011. The policy objective is to create a special administrative regime in the form of an administration procedure. The aim is to provide administrators with clarity and direction to resolve the firm without needing to approach the court on a frequent basis. These adjustments to current insolvency law will make the process less expensive and less disruptive for an investment firm, its clients and creditors and the market.

The Government have consulted widely and the response has been broadly supportive. It is important that we express our thanks to those who sit on the investment banking liaison panel for the time they have spent working on complex legislation and regulation to ensure that they achieve the Government’s purpose.

The regulations and the order are being made, of course, under the enabling powers in Sections 233 and 234 of the Banking Act 2009, which I had the honour to take through the House. This arose as a consequence of the insolvency of Lehman Brothers, when unanticipated complexities emerged in resolving that investment bank, particularly in connection with client money.

The Financial Services Authority has taken significant steps to improve the supervision of client money and to address a number of areas where there were shortcomings and deficiencies. In particular, it has put a very strong team under excellent leadership in place to be responsible for the supervision of client money. These regulations are important to maintaining public confidence in the stability of UK financial markets and the integrity of institutions and firms operating in these markets.

I have two questions for the Minister. When Lehman Brothers collapsed, one of the difficulties we experienced was that Lehman was holding money in client accounts which were appropriately designated as client accounts and, accordingly, should have been kept separate from the assets of Lehman Brothers when it came to administration. However, Lehman had placed this money on deposit with a separately incorporated Lehman bank in Germany. The German authorities, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, passed legislation to say that client money held on the accounts of this German banking subsidiary, when placed by an affiliated Lehman body, would not be deemed to be client money under German law. Is the Minister aware of whether any progress has been made on that point? Has this been raised at ministerial level recently with the German Government? It seems to strike at the very heart of the concept of the segregation of client assets which is intended to make sure that those clients are protected from any failure on the part of the institution with which they thought they had an agency rather than a principal relationship.

My second question relates to omnibus accounts. Will the Minister reflect on whether omnibus accounts are in themselves a source of hazard, and whether the practice of using omnibus accounts is one that the regulators should review in favour of looking at the case for requiring all accounts to be designated? Certainly in my experience, omnibus accounts undoubtedly increase confusion over the ownership of assets and the execution of certain fiduciary responsibility including, in particular, the voting rights of shares in UK companies at shareholder meetings.

Finally, I also express my support for the measures that the Government are taking in respect of the continuity of service arrangements, another problem that emerged with Lehman. The House should support the measures that the Government are bringing forward.

In closing I wish to mention a very crude term that is currently being used: banker bashing. Many members of the Government are engaged in banker bashing. The Secretary of State for Business and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury have made wholly uncomplimentary remarks about banks. Last night I was watching BBC “Newsnight” and was surprised to find the Mayor of London making uncharitable comments about banks. It is quite a volte-face, although it really takes him back to where he originally started.

It is important that we recognise that we have very many talented people working in investment banking in this country. I have had the privilege of working with them—they are in very many cases the best in the world, and they do not work only for our own banks. I would happily hear names like Royal Bank of Scotland. It is very easy to regard that as a bank associated with failure, but there are extraordinarily good people working there. Likewise, many people here in London work for firms such as Morgan Stanley and Citicorp, or for our own pre-eminent investment bank, BarCap. We need to maintain context here. Of course some of these problems continue to be self-inflicted by the banks, and I wish the Government well in their talks under Project Merlin, which are intended to bring some sense to bank bonus decisions. However, we need to keep in mind that investment banking, and banking in general, are a source of incredible competitive and comparative advantage for the UK economy. These regulations are entirely consistent with providing the support for a reputable, solid and prudent banking sector of the sort that we should seek to encourage in this country.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

In his defence of the banking industry, with which I broadly agree, will the noble Lord accept that the idea behind the Government asking bankers to be more responsible and to have a social conscience is not to imply that individual bankers are not worthy of their role and status in the industry, which is very important to us, but is directed at certain levels of remuneration? Irrespective of how talented an individual is, no single individual can add the kind of value-added that we have started to see in terms of remuneration and the bonus pool.

[Lord Myners]

I had almost concluded my speech but the noble Baroness’s intervention has provided me with an opportunity to carry on and say more. There are very talented people working in UK banking and some of them are among the world’s very best. They earn their remuneration. Sir Philip Hampton, the chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, referred to a gangmaster culture in some of the banks. I put down a Question for the Minister on this subject, to which he gave his standard Answer on bank bonuses which I can now recite. Regardless of the Question I ask, I get the same Answer. Perhaps it will change at some point, but I am beginning to lose any great hope that the Minister will seek to answer the Questions that I ask him on these subjects.

[The Archbishop of York]

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, normally speaks with great sense and clarity on matters of money, but the question is not that banking is not an honourable profession. People who work in the banks are people of good will and good respect, and they do a very good job. The first question is about bonuses. People in this country find the bonus culture indefensible. The second question is about the gambling casinos around banking. Will they get rid of those gambling casinos? Many people say they do not like them. The question that the noble Lord asked the Minister about Lehman Brothers and deposit accounts in Germany illustrated the point. Some people say that that is not the honourable business of banking. Anybody who is having a go at banking is saying not that banking is not an honourable profession or that bankers are not very able people doing a good job but that these bonuses and the gambling casinos taint the entire profession of banking.

[Lord Myners]

I can only say that there are failures of agency functions here. The shareholders are not holding the boards to account, and the boards are not asking the right questions or building depth of talent. It may be that the Minister, with his great experience in this area, can share with us his thoughts about why banking has this problem of high bonuses. My father was a fisherman, and there was not a big bonus culture in fishing. There is no bonus culture in making ball bearings, in engineering or in the hospitality industry. I think the answer possibly lies with the work that the Independent Commission on Banking is doing. The Minister always treats anything I say positively with considerable scepticism and caution, but I repeat my strong endorsement of the creation of the Independent Commission on Banking. It may well raise some interesting perspectives on the points that have been made. I close by simply saying that I fully support the administrative orders being tabled today.

[Baroness Maddock]

My Lords, I strongly support many of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Myners, said in support of these orders, particularly the measures that allow for clients’ assets to be recovered more readily. I have three questions.

Not only will administrators be able to prioritise the three objectives outlined in the instrument as they see fit, but they will also be able to continue to administer their organisations with a guarantee that suppliers must provide their services for up to a period of 28 days without pay. Have the Government fully identified the potential costs to suppliers who have to continue to provide their services for this period?

Secondly, I understand that the regulations allow suppliers to gain a court order to exempt them from this duty if they can prove hardship. Again, can the Government expand a little on the definition of hardship?

Lastly, on the bar date by which time claims for assets must be made, will the Government consider setting out what they think might be a reasonable amount of time to allow for claimants to properly state their case?

Having posed those questions, in summary I support these regulations and hope that the Government will give proper attention to the suppliers who must provide their services without pay and, of course, those clients who seek to recover their assets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate, perhaps a little more interesting because of one or two of the little side conversations that got going, and certainly more interesting than the perhaps slightly dry but very important regulations had led me to expect. I am grateful not only for all the contributions made but for the general support for the proposed regulations. The past few years have shown that investment banks can fail and can cause huge disruption, not just to investors but to the wider economy. That is why the Government are putting in place this new regime.

I said at the beginning that the regime is being developed with the input of industry experts. I should like to echo the thanks of the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for the input and help that we have had. These have been complex instruments to develop. I am also happy to acknowledge the process that has resulted in these regulations today was one that the noble Lord himself kicked off when he was in the Government. It has taken a couple of years to get the regulations right and to achieve a regime that I believe is fit for purpose.

In addition, in accordance with Section 236 of the Banking Act, the regime will be reviewed within two years of the regulations coming into force. That review will consider how far the regulations are achieving the objectives set out in Section 233 of the Banking Act and whether the regulations should continue to have effect. A copy of that report will be laid before Parliament. That goes some way to answering the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, about future-proofing, continuity and the connection to the wider regime. These are important questions, but they have been taken account of within the regime that the Banking Act sets up.

On the specific question on the future of the Financial Services Authority, I would not presume, until your Lordships’ House had passed the necessary legislation that will come forward, to talk too much about what happens after the Financial Services Authority comes to the end of its life. However, in that legislation, we will take full account of all the functions, including those under these instruments, which the FSA currently covers.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, asked about the situation with Germany. In particular, in response to that situation, the FSA has consulted on introducing a 20 per cent cap on intra-group deposits of client money so that the scope for exposure to overseas regimes that may have some bar on the return of money is significantly reduced. Of course, as I have already indicated, we work as a Government to ensure that resolution regimes, in so far as is possible, can be made consistent on both a European and global basis.

[Lord Myners]

The capping of exposures may be a good thing in itself, but what happened here was that, after the collapse of Lehman brothers, the Germans effectively said, “These are no longer client assets. They will be deemed to be the assets of Lehman Brothers International”. That is the core of the matter. It strikes me as quite extraordinary that a fellow European nation should have done this. To date, we have not been successful in unwinding what could only be regarded as a hostile action to the concept of client money. I welcome what has already been done, but I urge the Minister to take an interest in this and to see whether, perhaps with the FSA, we could give one more push on this subject.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, knows very well the difficult background to this, as well as the fact that the German situation is, in the first instance, a matter for the courts. It is therefore difficult to go into it in much detail. That is where it principally lies, rather than being a government to government matter. As I have explained, the sensible response to cover the generality of these situations is to ensure that investment banks do not in future overexpose the intra-group excessively. That is why they have introduced the 20 per cent restriction. We will wait to see how this matter is resolved in the courts and what further lessons, if any, that leads to.

The noble Lord then asked a second question about sources of moral hazard in omnibus accounts. Again, the Financial Services Authority has certainly focused attention on this area. It has committed to enhancing the client assets source book, where regulatory failures in the general area of protection of clients’ assets were very much exposed by the Lehman Brothers case. It is not the case that omnibus accounts are, in themselves, a source of hazard, as long as there is proper segregation of clients’ money, which is the critical issue here.

As has been said, today is not the time to get into the questions that came up at the end of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Myners, about bonuses, the importance of the City and so on. We will definitely come back to these things. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s confirmation that he supports the Independent Commission on Banking. I very much hope that it will shed light—as Sir John Vickers’s recent speech indicates it will—on all these issues. The noble Lord also referred to Project Merlin, which we are working on very hard to ensure that banks pay out bonuses that are less than they otherwise would have been and lend more than they otherwise would have done.

[Lord Myners]

I make one last intervention on this. Can the Minister tell us simply how the Government will find out what bonuses otherwise would have been and how much money would have been lent in the absence of Merlin? It seems that the Minister yesterday, in using the terms “demonstrable” and “verifiable”, overreached himself in suggesting that there was a way in which the outcome of Merlin could be proved. Can the Minister, in very simple, straightforward terms, explain how he will prove these issues on bonuses and credit extension?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, when we have a Project Merlin outcome to announce, the noble Lord will no doubt have every opportunity to cross-question me on these matters. I also note, just in case noble Lords missed it, that the noble Lord committed himself to that being his final intervention. He is certainly well below his batting average for interventions in my closing remarks but we will see whether he holds to it. I shall try not to provoke him. The only further thing that I wanted to say in response to the noble Lord was that, despite what I just said about banking and unfinished business on bonuses, I very much echo what he said about the importance of the City. Extraordinarily skilled work is done by many experts across the financial and business services in the City, and the City adds great value to the UK economy; we should not forget that.

I will respond to a couple of the points raised by my noble friend Lady Maddock. The supplier proposal adapts existing provisions in insolvency law, specifically within the Insolvency Act 1986. We are trying to ensure that, in the case of investment banks, those critical suppliers without whom the resolution of the investment bank cannot take place—the positions cannot be closed out—continue to supply. When we talk about 28 days, it is important that the supply is paid for but it is a question of whether it is paid for within the 28 days. The supplier can stop supplying if any charges in respect of the supply remain unpaid for more than 28 days, if the administrator consents to the termination, or if the supplier has the permission of the court. In that context, the definition of hardship will be left to the judgment of the court.

As regards the bar date, the critical protection is that sufficient time has to be allowed for publicity to be given to the fact that the investment bank has gone into special administration. There has to be sufficient time for affected clients to calculate and submit their claims and for practical difficulties in establishing claims to be sorted out. Therefore, I believe that there are sufficient protections in the regime.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, asked me a number of questions. I hope that I have dealt with the future-proofing and questions around the Financial Services Authority. Consumer protection will be fully taken into account in the architecture that we will propose to replace the Financial Services Authority. Central counterparties and the regulation of over-the-counter derivatives is an area which falls within the general heading that I addressed: namely, that we must work to achieve international and global solutions. I see some nodding and shaking of the head from the Benches opposite. That indicates that these things are not easy. We need to have a regime in place that is safe and appropriate for the markets in the UK, but equally we need to ensure that we have something consistent within the EU and the G20 framework as mechanisms which could provide safe solutions that might work against free investment flows. We have to ensure that this is not one of those issues where protectionism comes to the fore under the cloak of providing safe solutions. I absolutely take the point that the settlement of transactions is ongoing business in which the Government take an active part.

As regards how living wills fit with this new regime, recovery and resolution plans are again a core part of both our and the G20 authorities’ response to the “too big to fail” problem and will be required of all systemically important financial institutions. That is the critical definition in that context. It is not a question of an arbitrary definition that splits investment banks from other banks in the way that the noble Lord suggested might be the case.

On the protection of client assets, it is worth remembering that the FSA has set up a new client asset unit, which is a centre of excellence and expertise within the FSA, in further recognition of the important issues raised by the lessons learnt from Lehman. That further stresses the fact that although these instruments being put in place today are critical, they are in many respects only a part of a wider construct.

The first point that the noble Lord raised, but the last one which I should address, concerns the definition of fairness. The relevant provision is based on existing provisions in the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. “Fair” is the modern term for the previously used “just and equitable”. While I do not profess to be an expert on these matters, I am assured that the term “fair”—its use is based on a lot of case law defining “just and equitable”—is well defined under court rulings and will be well understood by those administering the special administration regime.

That has been a long response to a short but important debate.