EU ombudsman: regulator should have stopped director from joining lobby group

https://www.politico.eu/article/ombudsman-eba-shouldve-blocked-executive-farkas-move-to-banking-group/

by hhs • 6 years ago

117 42 6 years ago

politico.eu

catalogia• 6 years ago

I hate headlines like this, where every part is a mystery that leaves you wondering what the story is even about:

Watchdog

Who? European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly.

slams EU agency

Which? The European Banking Authority.

for letting boss

Who? Adam Farkas.

join lobby group

Which? Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

gadders2• 6 years ago

"slams" is a particular tabloid word as well. I don't think ever seen it used outside of a headline.

wccrawford• 6 years ago

I've heard teenagers use it when gossiping. Though that's been a while now.

Pfhreak• 6 years ago

Seems like it's primarily used for weather events, e.g. Hurricane X slams into Florida.

It's also pretty widely used in politics coverage across many news sites. I did a quick search of WaPo, NYT, BBC, etc. and they all had a few headlines that used it like this.

Angostura2• 6 years ago

It's a tabloid word but it's chosen primarly for being short.

See also the the old Variety headline about rural movie-goers avoiding films set in rural communities: 'Hicks Nix Sticks Flicks'

It's a throwback to when subs had to get punchy compact headlines on paper and didn't have to worry about SEO

dredmorbius• 6 years ago

I've suggested "EU Ombudsman criticises banking regulator executive director joining AFME lobby".

(Original is "Watchdog slams EU agency for letting boss join lobby group".)

dang• 6 years ago

I've taken a crack at adjusting the headline to use language from the article's opening paragraph. However, you're still only getting 1 of your 4. Have an ombudsman, at least.

If there were a way to squeeze banks in there, that'd be good too, but the 80 char limit stymied me.

Generally we take individuals' names out of titles rather than add them in, and adding "AFME" would be adding noise since few readers will have heard of it. In any case, it doesn't seem to matter as much which lobby group the director joined or which director it was who joined a lobby group.

PeterStuer2• 6 years ago

Once again the famous EU revolving door takes a spin. Captured regulator 101.

toyg• 6 years ago

It’s no different from the Fundamentally Supine Authority and the rest of UK regulators...

nelaboras• 6 years ago

it's a story because in the EU it's rather unusual. there were a few high profile cases but to say this is the norm is not really right...

dogma11382• 6 years ago

Working directly with ESMA for several years now it’s really not unusual.

Their entire workforce comes from the financial industry.

atmosx• 6 years ago

LOL, there's nothing unusual. The only unusual thing is the ombudsman taking note.

thefounder• 6 years ago

Isn't it the same pretty much everywhere? E.g UK, US, even in China? Companies hiring "ex" government figures for lobbying?

You try to imply that EU is kinda root of all evil.

> A top official has been poached by Facebook from the UK’s media watchdog, the Office of Communications (Ofcom).

https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/uk-media-watch...

> Warren Singles Out U.S. Officials for Moving to C-Suite Jobs

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-29/warren-pr...

Wohlf• 6 years ago

Not my personal opinion, but the answer I often see in response to this is where else are they supposed to go with their skillset?

vmception2• 6 years ago

The EU is interesting because it is so new, its courts have barely had their Marbury v Madison moment. We get to watch the capture of all branches of its government and power vacuum in real time, it is exciting and full of opportunity! Unless you are a EU resident or citizen that was skeptical about abstracting away their autonomy and national pride, mixed with a millenium of unresolved baggage against neighbors.

For the rest of us it can fascinating to watch the accelerated growth of that supernational government and its institutions be taken over so quickly and finds it ground.

mulmen• 6 years ago

You try to imply that EU is kinda root of all evil.

I think that's an unfair leap. Criticizing the EU does not imply the EU the "root of all evil".

Whataboutism is not a defense. This appears to be a valid criticism of the EU.

brnt2• 6 years ago

What's nice about the EU there's 27 different parties and jurisdictions and home markets involved in regulation (note that the EU does not have regulatory powers, merely strong recommendations that nation states should implement at their earliest convenience which may very well be decades into the future). This creates a field in which it is much harder for a particular commercial party to get the upper hand.

fennecfoxen• 6 years ago

This creates a field in which 20 of the 27 jurisdictions have some entrenched interest which securely holds the upper hand in that particular jurisdiction, secure from competition, free to earn economic rents.

angel_j• 6 years ago

They followed up the SLAM with a SUPLEX off the TOP ROPE.

prepperpotts• 6 years ago

one interesting, counterintuitive argument i've seen on how to prevent this is in lawrence lessig's book, "republic, lost" about the us congress.

his take is that public servants actually don't make enough money, when compared to their peers in the public sector, and that an important step to preventing regulatory capture is to pay them better. that way, people don't spend their careers in public service trying to avoid pissing off lobbyists they're hoping to work for later.

not sure if it'd work or not, or if making moves like this illegal is better, but it's definitely an interesting idea.

FeistyOtter• 6 years ago

Campaign cost to run for Congress has been skyrocketing for years. And the cost of living in DC is very high, especially for such public figures who are expected to host all kinds of gatherings. It is a wonder that between all these fundraisers they have time and will at all to do policymaking.

afiori• 6 years ago

In Italy it is illegal for political parties to accept donations[1] and within bounds political parties are reimbursed for their campaign spending (or are dependent on own income)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_pulite

linuxftw• 6 years ago

Doesn't stop the problem from flowing the other direction. Often, ex-executives of major firms are now the heads of the regulatory agencies. Do these heads own lots of shares and have obvious conflicts of interest with their 'former' firms? Of course, if your significant other is on the board, well, nothing much the law can say about that either.

The real problem is far too much authority was vested (taken?) by the federal congress. Smaller government is the key to keeping the government in check.

cure• 6 years ago

The real problem is far too much authority was vested (taken?) by the federal congress. Smaller government is the key to keeping the government in check.

That feels like a bit of a non sequitor. Can you elaborate? Genuinely curious.

parkovski2• 6 years ago

[citation needed]

JoshTriplett• 6 years ago

The government can't (or shouldn't) pay someone enough to compete with 7-9 figure compensation from the high end of the private sector. If someone actually creates significant value, and gets to share in some small fraction of that value, that's going to outpace any salary-based compensation.

parkovski2• 6 years ago

What about giving them a high potential but making their actual salary a function of approval rating? In order to maximize how much you make you have to work to unify your constituents.

I don't think you'd want this to be linear either. My feeling is you'd want the pay to stay pretty low anywhere below a 50% support level and climb pretty steeply above that, which discourages the split people down the middle mess the US is in. You'd probably accept that a small portion of people are nutcases so the salary would approach the max at around 85-90% support.

There are some potential exploits that you'd have to try to address but it's a thought.

Mindwipe• 6 years ago

How do you determine approval rating? The reality is that only a small percentage of the public has any idea of whom any public servant is outside of their leader.

And at that point it's easily gamed, and leads to ineffective short termist planning by the public servant.

This is a terrible idea that would be hugely damaging to the public.

brnt2• 6 years ago

In that scenario an interested party would need to do no more than pay for a small Facebook campaign to get rid of a disagreeable civil servant.

What we need is checks and balances, not an even more volatile method.

dirtydroog• 6 years ago

The ombudsman presented two findings of maladministration by the EBA. The first is the regulator should have “forbidden the job move.”

I'm not sure how legally enforceable that would be. I wonder if the Bosman ruling would make that move unlawful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling

solidsnack9000• 6 years ago

I wondered about this as well. How could they (non-extra-legally) forbid the job move?

acd• 6 years ago

It could be corruption.

EU ombudsman: regulator should have stopped director from joining lobby group

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