Living in interesting times

Monday, 07:25 It is a fine autumn morning.

I am writing this while waiting on the sea front at Brighton for my 7:30 rendezvous with a Labour Party representative who will give me my security pass for the "secure zone" in which the Party conference is taking place.

This time last week I was on a train to Paris headed to the HQ of the Committee of European Securities Regulators. I am part of a CESR Working Group, advising on implementing the Regulation on credit rating agencies.

In fact the last few days give a good sample of the work of Policy and Technical Department at the ACT.

We have been preparing for a couple of briefing meetings on treasury with non-executive directors and liaising with a lot of organisations about the mooted regulations on over the counter derivatives on both sides of the Atlantic. We issued a press release on OTC regulation on Thursday covering a briefing note we prepared for the European Association of Corporate Treasurers and meetings with US regulators and the European Commission. This follows up earlier representations. We are preparing for some other work later this autumn with the Bank of England and working on a briefing note on the "upturn", if that is what is happening.

Wednesday was the London annual conference of the Loan Market Association. On Thursday morning there was a routine ACT Council meeting. In the afternoon, I was at the British Bankers Association Foreign Exchange and Money Markets Committee which oversees the calculation and issuing of LIBOR. The ACT is currently the only non-bank on the Committee but soon I will be joined by two more "users".

Martin O’Donovan is similarly active. For example last Monday, in the morning, he was on a panel at a conference on LIBOR and, in the afternoon, at an accounting working group.

And we each get many e-mails and telephone calls with members and non-members talking about developments and informing us or asking for advice. This is very important to us.

Then there is all the reading. Not just the 95 pages of proposed regulation under discussion in Paris last Monday, but all the background on treasury related topics.

So what am I doing at a Party Conference? I don’t know. But lots of people have been telling us it is important to be there, to be more "engaged". Time will tell.

If you need me, I’m in Brighton for a couple of days.

By John Grout