Rachel Evans
Staff writer
It's a scorching day in May. The sun is sparkling on Canary Wharf and hundreds of people cram the postage stamps of grass. But as one in-house lawyer explains over lunch, the weather is all they have to celebrate:
"Fair value accounting has forced us to write down huge losses that may never materialise. And the new Basel rules force us to hold more capital against these downgraded assets. Both are combining to make things a lot worse than they need to be."...