Saturday 22 November 2008

What Jonathan Ross Tells Us About Banking Regulation


The following is an extract from the BBC Trust's report.

"The Producer wrote to Radio 2’s Head of Compliance … The problem comes when Jonathan says that Russell 'f*cked' Sachs' granddaughter ... I would say take it out, but it forms the crux of the call and is VERY funny … Let me know what you think. Russ and Jonathan both VERY keen for it to go out.

The Producer did not mention that Andrew Sachs had asked for the content to be toned down. He says he was extremely uncomfortable about the material but at the same time felt he owed it to Vanity Projects to make its arguments for inclusion with the BBC. That reflected the conflict of interest with which he found himself as an employee of the BBC while on loan to Russell Brand’s company.

The Head of Compliance emailed the Controller of Radio 2:
I think we should keep in and put a 'strong language' warning at the top of the hour. I think it's editorially justified in this context and certainly within audience expectations for Russell's show. Andrew Sachs is aware and is happy with the results. Are you happy with this as a plan of action?

The Controller sent a one word reply from her BlackBerry authorising inclusion of the material: Yes"
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With just a very few changes, we can see how comprehensively the wider culture has been debased:

The Risk Manager wrote to the Bank’s Head of Compliance … The problem comes when Joe says that Russ 'has used slightly different contractual wording’ to that recommended by the Auditors ... I would say take it out, but it forms the crux of the deal and is VERY profitable … Let me know what you think. Russ and Joe both VERY keen for it to go ahead

The Risk Manager did not mention that the Auditor had asked for the unconditional financial guarantee to be removed. He says he was extremely uncomfortable about the guarantee but at the same time felt he owed it to the Private Equity division to make its arguments for inclusion with the Credit Committee. That reflected the conflict of interest with which he found himself as an employee of Risk Management while on assignment to the PE division.


The Head of Compliance emailed the Chairman of the Credit Committee.
I think we should keep in and put a 'risk factors' warning in the small print. I think it's commercially justified in this context and certainly within rating agency expectations for the sort of crap we regularly get them to sign off. Audit is aware and is happy with the results. Are you happy with this as a plan of action?

The Chairman sent a one word reply from her BlackBerry ...

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And I think we know what she said.

ND


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The world has moved into a strange state when personal judgement is derided & system is everything. ISO/TS standards in manufacturing, "compliance" regulations in banking, they all lead to the same thing: a box ticking mentality. What we need is supervision from intelligent people who know their stuff, people who have the wit & strength of character to say "alright, you've ticked all the boxes, but this smells funny to me & I'm not allowing it" or alternatively "you haven't ticked every box, but this is good stuff". But that requires experience and maturity, things out of fashion with the teenage drones in the BBC and elsewhere.

We're all doomed, you know.

Anonymous said...

It would appear Andrew Sachs was a knowing, willing party to the incident and media 'sensationalism'. A commentator suspected a connection between Ross's wife - Goldsmith Sachs and
(not so) offended Mr Sachs.

BBC/media operate in a very convoluted fashion ....

Sebastian Weetabix - honesty, integrity and common sense are the enemies of 'political correctness' PC is that which suits Nulabor's self serving agendas.

JPT said...

Whether the thing was broadcast or not is with regards to Ross' conduct a moot point as the offensive message had already been left.

John B said...

"Whether the thing was broadcast or not is with regards to Ross' conduct a moot point as the offensive message had already been left."

But that doesn't matter for the purposes of the analogy, since a) Sachs didn't express any concerns/upset about the *existence* of the message, just about its broadcast; and b) the BBC didn't have any control over whether or not the message was left, just about whether or not it was broadcast.

A related analogy could be:

1) R&B say something that can clearly be interpreted, by anyone who's reasonably intelligent, well-versed in the recent history of comedy [*] and not easily offended, as funny.

2) The producer thinks it's funny, interprets Sachs' response in line with his existing views on the sketch [*], and proceeds on that basis to the director.

3) The director trusts her producer to understand what's going on in the market, and fails to bring in her own early-career experience of massive sh*tstorms where everything falls apart for no discernible reason.

4) The target audience have no problems with the sketch, but an enormous gang of weird Traditional Values Hang Em Flog Em types kick off an enormous pointless media storm, of a sort that the poor producer has never seen.

This equates quite nicely to quants coming up with Amazing Moneymaking Models In Which Nothing Can Possibly Ever Go Wrong, seniors who've only been in the biz for a decade or so believing in the models, and directors who really ought to know better (given their experience of past irrational, unexpected s***storms) believing that their teams' fantastic new products have eliminated risk.

It also rather neatly casts the market turmoil as analogous to a swarm of loonytunes Daily Mail-ites, which is definitely a feature rather than a bug...

[*] e.g. a well-known sitcom in which a man with serious self-control issues is well aware that it'd be horribly inappropriate to mention a particular thing to a particular group of people, but finds that the harder he tries to avoid doing so and to apologies, the more embarrassing a hole he digs for himself. Probably, a producer might think, a man who played a mildly offensive ethnic stereotype character in a show with that plot would get the humour in the Brand/Ross tapes. And no, this digression has no analogy in the world of finance.

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