Luxembourg's Commission de Surveillance du Sector Financier has asked the Government to deprive it of its authority to levy fines on firms.

According to the Luxembourg Times, the idea is for the power to punish firms to go to a new body whose composition has yet to be determined. Such a change will require a new law, which the regulator has already drawn up.

The revelation came from Claude Marx (pictured), the regulator's director-general, when he was speaking at a conference. He placed his faith in an 'independent agency,' although it is hard to imagine any regulatory body being at all independent from the Government that creates it.

The total amount of administrative fines imposed by the CSSF in 2016 (the last year for which there are figures) reached €1,330,950 (£1,179,289) - slightly lower than the €1,335,000 (£1,182,877) of 2015. Last summer the commission announced that these figures were likely to grow in the following years because of new laws imposed by the European Union. Indeed, the Luxembourgeois versions of these laws have generally adapted the Grand Duchy's administrative pecuniary penalty regime in order to increase the maximum amount of administrative fines that the CSSF may impose. It is interesting to note that they introduce a rule that allows the regulator to set the maximum amount of an administrative fine as a pre-determined percentage of a firm's total annual turnover.