The big question
What do you fear about living wills?
February 01, 2010
The scope of regulation to impose living wills in the UK and the US reaches much further than originally planned. Lawyers are worried it could change the way that banks are structured, and tie up essential capital reserves
Elizabeth Fournier
Staff writer
Of the many components of so-called living wills that have emerged since they were first mentioned in a UK Treasury paper in January 2008, it's the comprehensive structural change they threaten to impose on banks that lawyers most fear. And it could be on its way sooner rather than later.
In November 2009, the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh committed itself to the "rapid development of internationally consistent, firm-specific recovery and resolution plans and tools by end-2010".
In-house counsel are calling these so-called living wills for banks "top of the agenda for regulators around the world this year", with repercussions that could lead to "huge structural changes" at banks. And with an FSA consultation on living wills closed on February 1, and the Financial Stability Improvements Act passed in the US last December, it looks like regulators are keeping the G20 promise.
Forty-three percent of respondents to IFLR's...
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