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The Big Interview: Eddy Wymeersch

Tuesday 1 June 2010 - by Nicola York


Wymeersch says the big question is whether regulators and legislators will ever be able to master systemic risk.

Wymeersch says: “If you look at the crisis, it has been to a certain extent a systemic risk issue. But it has also largely been a question of non-transparency, bad behaviour, cheating really with the rules.

“And I think the first step is that we have to make sure that there is more sense of responsibility in the financial system. I would identify that to a large extent as governance issues. And you see that the governance in financial institutions has been way too weak.”

He says there was not sufficient criticism or independent opinion on the board of companies and stresses this is as important as having the expertise to oversee these companies.


“I think we gave too much power to the management. We have to make contravening powers against the management to make sure that the financial institutions are run in a responsible way, because the havoc that they have created now is unbelievable.”

How does CESR deal with the challenge of keeping up with such a fast changing marketplace?

Wymeersch says: “It is fairly challenging and everybody knows that we are working on a system that is evolving and evolving increasingly rapidly, we are seeing all kind of new techniques.

“The regulation is behind always. The regulators are always behind, that is also clear. That is inevitable, that is the innovation in the markets. So it is challenging but because it is challenging it is fascinating.”

He says when ESMA comes into being, it will have more technical standards which can evolve much more rapidly to keep apace with the markets.
Wymeersch studied law at Harvard and at Ghent University and has been an academic at the Ghent Law School. He has published in the fields of company law, banking law and financial supervision.

He was the Chairman of the Belgian Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission CBFA from 2001 to 2007. He still chairs the CBFA’s supervisory board as well as its sanctions committee.

He is also chair of the European Regional Committee of IOSCO. As for the future, his function will cease to exist when ESMA is born and he will “see what happens next” though he is quick to say he doesn’t “have the patience” for politics.


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