In a speech to the Insurance Institute of London (IIL), Snowball will say the industry is "over-regulated" by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), arguing it has, in some areas at least, earned the right to "light touch regulation".

In addition, he will say: "Most people live busy lives and have higher priorities than reading through page after page of information provided by their insurer. It is time to look properly at the current regulatory model and tackle the flaws."

THE FORMER US vice-president Al Gore urged the pensions industry yesterday to adopt longer-term investment goals or risk undermining attempts to build sustainable economies, says the Guardian .

He told an audience of pension fund managers, trustees and advisers at the annual investment conference of the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) in Edinburgh short-termism in company decision-making would delay progress in tackling the carbon emissions causing global warming.

In a measured speech designed to prod rather than berate his audience, Gore produced an array of statistics showing how the investment community, backed by pension fund money, was encouraging company executives to reject investments which failed to improve short-term profits.

He highlighted the responses of US chief executives to a poll which asked if they would invest in a venture if it failed to enhance quarterly earnings. He said a majority rejected the proposal.

LEHMAN BROTHERS has reported record quarterly profits after a surge in revenues from stock trading outweighed a slump in earnings from its mortgage bond underwriting business, reports the Times .

However, revenue from fixed-income trading rose by only 3% to $2.16bn, as “weakness in the US residential mortgage sector” took its toll of the bottom line and led to the bank's lowest bond trading growth since the first quarter of 2006.

The firm continued to benefit from the booming market for mergers and acquisitions with deal advisory revenues rising 9% to $247m as the bank advised on about $22bn of transactions.

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