Getting off track
Calls by politicians to ban off-balance-sheet vehicles may border on the hysterical, but amendments to the rules governing their use and a return to simpler structures could help banks avoid future calamities. Rob Davies reports
One commonality linking two of the biggest financial disasters of the current decade - the collapse of Houston-based energy firm Enron in 2001 and the ongoing credit crisis - is the presence of off-balance-sheet entities. It is not altogether unsurprising, then, that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have linked the two events and demanded urgent action.
"After Enron, with Sarbanes-Oxley, we tried legislatively to make it clear there has to be some transparency with regard to off-balance
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