Culture clash: Why banks need to rid themselves of culture-by-consultancy GUEST ESSAY Retail and investment banks are under scrutiny like never before - and culture is on the frontline, argues City lawyer Barnabas Reynolds
Profit not process: How our banks grew too bureaucratic for their own good GUEST ESSAY Judgement is being impaired by bureaucratic process, write two of the City's foremost lawyers
How changing a single risk measure could give banks the freedom the economy needs GUEST ESSAY In this guest essay, three of the City’s sharpest minds lay out a route for our biggest lenders to get their risk appetite back Since the global financial crisis of 2007/8, banks have been less able to lend to the real economy. Much of their traditional financing activity has been displaced into the more lightly [...]
A legal puzzle: How to solve the post-Brexit Northern Ireland border July 12, 2023 Barnabas Reynolds is a partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP and the co-author of Mutual Enforcement, a recent publication by Centre for Brexit Policy. In this guest essay he makes the case that the UK can only solve the Northern Ireland border issue by drawing up an entirely new solution. It is sometimes possible to [...]
A rich tradition of English law has always kept our EU rivals on their toes November 24, 2021 It’s the economy, stupid, was the refrain coined by James Carville to help Bill Clinton win his 1992 presidential campaign. The US was experiencing an economic recession and the incumbent president, George HW Bush, was seen as out of touch. Yet the levers for prosperity are few in number. The main ones are tax rates, [...]
Brexit: Restoration of common law principles gives financial services the tools to be innovative February 10, 2021 Now that the UK has left the EU, it is time that we re-set the legal framework of our financial services. This is not the emotional reaction of a Brexit optimist – although I do believe that there are many advantages to our leaving the European Union – but rather a pragmatic assessment based on [...]
Pay no attention to the EU negotiator behind the curtain July 31, 2020 In the film the Wizard of Oz, the heroine, on finally arriving in the presence of the unseen Wizard, hears his booming voice telling her to go away and come back another time. When her dog Toto pulls back the curtain in the grand room to reveal a small, old man operating the levers of [...]
How systemic risk is shaking the market’s foundations July 8, 2020 Adversity, like necessity, is the mother of invention. Firms are seeking novel ways to adapt to the challenges of Covid-19 and the likely increase of remote working even after the pandemic subsides. Some problems are easier to solve than others. In the easier category, new solutions are needed to replicate the spontaneous interactions that arise [...]
Closing the backdoor to EU dumping May 25, 2020 Full sovereignty is fundamental to the UK’s success in the post-Brexit future. For it to be achieved a number of loose ends left by the Brexit withdrawal process must be tied up. This should now be a priority for the future trade deal, so the UK can ensure UK citizens and businesses can compete fairly [...]
Protecting the UK from the flaws of the Eurozone May 21, 2020 The Eurozone is half-complete. Control over the euro currency is centralised, but member state financial arrangements are individualised, creating almost intolerable tensions. That much is well known. What is not so well known is how this set-up operates to the detriment of the UK in three crucial ways. First, the value of the euro is [...]