Research projects

Conflicts of interest in financial markets

A series of seminars on the theme of “Conflicts of interest in financial markets” took place at the Centre in 2004 and 2005. The project was headed by a working party comprising Professor Per Thorell, Professor Lars Gorton, Sigvard Heurlin, Authorised Public Accountant, Per-Ola Jansson, CEO, Stefan Lindskog, LL.D., Attorney-at-law, and Gunnar Nord, Hon. LL.D. Research Assistants Lina Jonson and Helena Riese served as secretaries to the project.

Both researchers and practitioners took part in the seminars, which addressed issues concerning conflicts of interest in insurance companies, investment banks, mutual fund companies, rating institutes, public authorities, lawyers, auditors and journalists. Specific issues, such as conflicts of interest created by the legislature and other regulators, legal-economic aspects of conflicts of interest and development tendencies regarding solution models, were dealt with.

The seminar series ended with a major workshop which discussed the manuscript of an anthology summarising the proceedings. This anthology, published in January 2006 as Vol. 4 in the Centre’s publication series,contains about 20 contributions, edited by Gunnar Nord and Per Thorell.