April 2010: Three GSL Summits in 30 days – but no shortage of topics

The last GSL Summit in London is barely past us but already the next three events on the GSL calendar are looming large: the New York Summit, the German Summit and the French Summit – and the timing could not be better.

In the USA, we’ve seen the SEC introduce a rule restricting short selling on stocks which fall 10% in a day, while the Obama administration has just sent its so-called “Volcker rule” to Congress – topics that are sure to come up among delegates at the New York Summit.

Meanwhile, the German regulator lifted its short selling ban at the beginning of February – but noises from the German finance minister suggest that he would like to see short selling banned. GSL will of course be following these developments as they happen and their conclusion could well form part of the discussions in Frankfurt.

In France, short selling is also under fire – the finance regulator there (the AMF) decided at the end of January to extend “until further notice” the ban on shorting certain financial stocks. The AMF has also been working with the Committee of European Securities Regulators, which has called for a pan-European short selling disclosure system.

Of course, as always in the whirlwind of media reporting around short selling, the distinction between naked and covered short selling seems to have been lost – a point that was raised at our London Summit last month.

By inviting to our summits participants from across the securities lending sphere, as well as regulators and lawmakers, we hope to provide clarity and transparency on these subjects, so that there can be no doubt about who’s naked and who isn’t – thus ensuring proper debate.

Make sure you are there so you can have your say.