Trade body warns of failure to reach EU-US deal on derivatives

London

FAILURE by European Union and US regulators to iron out differences in their derivatives rules would prompt "catastrophic" attempts by market users to pull out from American clearing houses, a senior industry official has warned.

World leaders agreed in 2009 to increase transparency in the market after the collapse of Lehman Brothers left regulators in the dark over who was on the other side of vast chunks of the failed US bank's derivatives transactions.