別對金融合作監管抱有奢望

When Jack Lew, US Treasury secretary, participated in last week’s Group of 20 meetings, he issued a familiar plea: there needs to be more co-ordination over how countries impose financial market regulations and oversee the activities of banks.

美國財政部部長傑克•盧(Jack Lew)在出席上週舉行的20國集團(G20)會議時，老調重彈地呼籲各國應在監管金融市場和銀行活動方面加強合作。

He might as well have called on pigs to fly or bankers to become nuns. Since 2008 there have been numerous efforts to harmonise global financial rules. And in some respects progress has been made. Common capital standards have been agreed under the umbrella of Basel III. A global regulatory body, the Financial Stability Board, has been created.

他還不如呼籲豬上樹或者讓銀行家做修女。自2008年以來，各國為協調全球金融法規而付出了巨大的努力。從某些方面來說確實取得了進展，比如在《巴塞爾協議III》(Basel III)框架下達成了共同的資本標準。同時全球監管機構——金融穩定理事會(Financial Stability Board)已經成立。

The unpalatable truth that no minister wants to acknowledge, however, is that almost every step towards co-ordination has been offset by a step away from it elsewhere. Just after Mr Lew’s appeal, for example, Deutsche Bank revealed that it would have to reduce its American assets by $100bn because US regulators are tightening capital rules for foreign banks. The UK has done something similar.

然而，所有部長都不願承認的令人不快的真相是，合作方面的每一個進展幾乎都會被其它方面的倒退所抵消。例如，就在盧發出呼籲之後，德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)披露稱，該行不得不將其美國資產削減1000億美元，因為美國監管機構收緊了外資銀行的資本要求。英國也採取了類似的做法。

The US is also unilaterally introducing the Volcker rule, forcing banks to shed proprietary trading, while Europe is introducing rules for asset managers. Even the Basel III accord is implemented differently in different places.

美國還單方面出臺了沃爾克規則(Volcker rule)，迫使銀行剝離自營交易，同時歐洲正在出臺針對資產管理公司的規則。甚至不同地區執行《巴塞爾協議III》的步調也不一致。

Is there a solution? One option might be for regulators and bankers to borrow ideas from international divorce or property disputes; or, as Annelise Riles, a Cornell law professor suggests in a paper presented last week in New York, from the arcane field of “Conflicts of Laws.”

有解決辦法嗎？一個選項或許是監管機構和銀行向跨國離婚或財產糾紛案的處理借鑑一些思路；或者就如康奈爾大學(Cornell University)法學教授萬安黎(Annelise Riles)上週在紐約釋出的報告中所述，從神祕的“法律衝突”領域獲得靈感。

Conflicts specialists determine which national law should apply when fights straddle borders. They do not rule on the contents of laws, or the merits of any case, but merely decide which legal regime to apply, based on technical factors such as the original intention behind national laws.

當出現跨國衝突時，由衝突專家決定應適用哪國法律。他們不會裁決法律內容，也不會涉及案件是非，而只是從各國法律初衷等技術因素出發，來判定應適用哪國法律制度。

Until now, nobody has ever asked these specialist lawyers to grapple with financial regulations; instead they usually just handle divorce or commercial deals. But Ms Riles thinks regulators should learn from some of their ideas. If the G20 were to adopt a “conflicts” mentality, it could drop the fantasy of co-ordination. Instead, it could accept the reality that different countries have different rules – and appoint technocratic, apolitical specialists to decide which laws apply if a conflict arises. “This provides a far more nuanced, sophisticated, and nevertheless manageable approach,” Ms Riles argues. And some regulators and lawyers agree.

迄今為止，沒有人要求這些專業律師解決金融監管問題；相反他們通常只是處理離婚或商業協議。但萬安黎認為監管機構應該借鑑他們的一些觀點。如果G20採用一種“衝突”思維，就可能拋棄合作幻想。它可能會接受不同國家法律不同的現實，並任命從事技術工作的無黨派專家來判定在衝突發生時應適用哪國法律。萬安黎辯稱：“這種方式更加微妙和複雜，但也更容易操作。”一些監管機構和律師對此表示同意。

At the Federal Reserve, for example, some lawyers talk privately of creating a “conflicts” database to enable regulators and bankers to track national variations in a transparent way. And some derivatives lawyers in London, such as Jeff Golden, have suggested creating an international court to handle contentious complex securities deals – in effect, an equivalent for the derivatives world of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

例如，在美聯儲(Fed)，一些律師私下談論建立一個“衝突”資料庫，以便讓監管機構和銀行家能夠以一種透明的方式瞭解各國法律的不同之處。倫敦的傑夫•戈爾登(Jeff Golden)等衍生品律師提議建立一個國際法庭來處理存在爭議的複雜的證券交易，實際上相當於衍生品領域的海牙國際刑事法庭。

In the near future, such radical ideas are unlikely to fly. National politicians would be loath to cede authority to a private law court on such a sensitive public policy matter as banking rules; and the risk of financial contagion makes governments unwilling to trust foreign regulatory authorities.

此類激進的想法不太可能很快付諸實施。在銀行業監管這麼敏感的公共政策事務方面，各國政客不會願意將權力交給一傢俬人法庭；而金融危機蔓延的風險也讓各國政府不願信任外國監管機構。

And yet some regulators do now appear to be privately conceding Ms Riles’ point – namely that co-ordination is an unworkable fantasy – and quietly hunting for alternatives.

然而現在一些監管機構看來確實在私下裡認同萬安黎的觀點（即合作是不切實際的幻想），並在悄悄地尋找替代辦法。

Take the question of how to handle big bank failures. Five years ago, British and US regulators hoped to find a co-ordinated solution to this issue. But last year they tacitly recognised the inevitable – US and UK supervisors will never harmonise their approaches to shutting failed banks. Instead they agreed to respect each others’ rules, and came up with rough guidelines for deciding where each national regime applied. “This is about finding workable solutions,” says one former British regulator.

以如何解決處理大銀行破產的問題為例。5年前，英國和美國的監管機構希望針對這個問題找到一個協商一致的解決辦法。但去年它們預設這是不可能的——美國和英國監管機構在關閉破產銀行的途徑上根本不能達成一致。相反，它們同意尊重對方的法律，提出決定各國法律適用範圍的大體原則。一位英國前監管人員表示：“這麼做是想找到可行的解決方案。”

That is not nearly as good a solution as global harmonisation. But sometimes an imperfect answer is better than no answer at all. Or to put it another way, sooner or later, the G20 needs honestly to recognise that full co-ordination is a fantasy; and start talking about what other solutions could create a transparent and predictable financial world. And perhaps even talk to those divorce lawyers.

這幾乎與全球協調一樣，也不是一個好的解決方案。但有時，不太完美的方案好於沒有方案。或者換言之，G20遲早需要誠實地承認，完全合作是個幻想；開始談論其它解決方案可能會讓金融世界變得透明而可預測。或許它們甚至會請教那些離婚律師。