Perspectives of Regulation of Complex Financial Institutes - Essay Example

General complaints about a “lack of regulatory aggressiveness” ignore the realities of actually bringing enforcement actions in a tough environment. Regulatory enforcement in the United States operates surprisingly well given the difficulties of this operating environment, and critics have not presented credible alternatives to the present system. A second perspective is that major financial institutions escape meaningful regulatory constraints because their power and influence overwhelm regulators and because individuals from regulatory institutions give too much deference to major financial institutions and their key executives and staff.

This perspective suggests that financial regulation in the United States is broken largely because of this political dynamic and needs fundamental reform. This paper will examine and look into how regulators and firms deal with each other, how interdependent they are on each other and the outcome of such interdependency. What kind of benefits and liabilities develop due to their strong ties. Financial institutes will be used as the premise of all discussion. Special attention will be given to potential benefits and risks of such cohesive regulatory networks.

Regular dealings between regulators and financial institute beyond the regular rule making boost up co-operation. Ineffect transparency takes a toll. Information disparities also strengthen regulatory cultures and bring down the threshold of external pressure need to effect changes within firms. The conditions that bring this benefit impede flow of information and genuine criticism from outsider. As a result performance standards dip and various other problems crop up. The paper looks into various examples of such fraudulent activities and also the circumstances in which these tensions are more likely to manage without damage from these problems.

Strong ties that encourage cooperation within insiders have a huge impact on the flow of information. Information disparity arises and outsiders are asked to stop criticism. A lot of problems shape up as a result. A very prominent example in this case would be the SEC, NASD and NYSE when they acted against conflicts of interests in investment banking and mutual funds, immediately after outsiders. In 2003, at a cost 1.4 billion dollars, regulator prosecutors and large securities firms settled charges.

The firms had encouraged investment analysts to mask and exaggerate corporation’s investment value while misleading investors in order to win the corporation’s investment banking business. For many years, this was floating around as a secret in the industry while the press and various congressional hearings had focused on it. While the participants were aware of the ethical implications of such a business, they eventually came to terms with it and started living with it as if it was a normal part of the business.

The Lehman Brothers came to the rescue and appealed for new synergy by announcing a new model for dealing between analysts and investment banking. This was widely accepted new paradigm for synergy and stated that “The analyst is THE key driver of the firm relationship with its corporate client base. Analysts need to accept responsibility and use it to expand the franchise and DRIVE PROFITABILITY