France and Germany claimed a win today as the G20 group of the world's leading economies agreed to increase financial market oversight, according to AP. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the meeting gained commitments from the United States, China, Japan and others to curb the world's shadow banking system as they promised more oversight on hedge funds and to clamp down on tax havens. «Clearly our colleagues in the G20 moved in our direction,» she said. «France and Germany and pretty much all European countries were very keen that we had a breakthrough in relation to regulation and transparency.» German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck greeted an American and British turnaround on these issues, saying neither wanted to look at these issues two years ago because it «could have affected negatively their financial markets in London and New York.» In a joint statement, G20 finance ministers said «all systematically important financial institutions, markets and instruments are subject to an appropriate degree of regulation and oversight and that hedge funds or their managers are registered and disclose appropriate information to assess the risks they pose.» They also agreed to oversight and registration of credit rating agencies, clearer accounting rules for problem assets, more standards for credit derivative markets and «a tool box of effective counter measures» against tax havens and noncooperative regions where looser financial rules apply.
