Tempers are beginning to fray in the derivatives industry. This month, the boss of one of the biggest US trading venues spoke publicly of the power of the US authorities to retaliate against European institutions, and the head of an international trade body made soothing noises about flexibility.

The tension has its origins in the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in 2009 that agreed to reduce the risk of derivatives trading by making it more transparent. This was a sensible idea in principle, but in practice it is threatening to fracture a multi-trillion dollar global market, because devising the new rules was not done at global level.