Professor Philip Lane:

We tried to explain the range of how we deal with any breach of our regulations. There is a range which remains private - any regulator in the world will have private actions - and then a range where there is a public disclosure of the administrative sanction.

I agree that those who want to learn more and so on do hit a wall, a limit of information here. We do not indicate publicly actions that are within the realm of private regulatory actions. The fact that we have not spoken publicly about the regulatory response in terms of any sanction creates this asymmetry of information in that we are precluded from disclosing any more. This provides a source of frustration, I am sure, for the committee and for Mr. Sugarman but what we are saying is that we are satisfied. We have no reason not to maintain the highest regulatory standards. It is essential that we are a first-class regulator for these wholesale banks and for all other entities. We have given our assurance, subject to the limitations of confidentiality under which we operate, that we are satisfied that we dealt with this in a way that is entirely in keeping with being a first-class, robust and intrusive regulator.