Professor Philip Lane:

Let me make a general point. This is a real issue in finance. If we take the global firms, they have thousands of legal entities within them, if we think about diving into a big global bank. We regulate many international banks. We get a global map of how one entity relates to another. Absolutely, this is all driven by corporate lawyers setting up legal entities to suit particular transactions for all sorts of reasons. It is the case that life would be a lot easier for everyone, for us for visibility and for the committee and the general public, if, for example, it was obvious in every case what is the parent firm and what is the ultimate controlling firm. I agree that the law is such that firms can set up all sorts of subsidiaries and vehicles that may be interconnected and the position is not always obvious. In the examples the Chairman has given at least the same name is showing up somewhere, but we know many global firms have all sorts of bizarrely named entities below them.

It is a job of work for us as regulators to keep clear about the interconnections between firms. It makes it hard for everyone else to keep track of what is going on. I agree with that.