While the U.S. seems to be backing away from additional hedge fund regulation, Germany’s Bundesbank is pushing for more, in the form of a code of conduct and ratings. Bundesbank board member Edgar Meister told the Financial Times that the central bank is looking to head off any possible disaster, á la Long-Term Capital Management of the late ‘90s, by pressing for greater transparency now and should not “just wait until a market crisis happens.” And happen it will, he says, as “the risk is growing that a crisis is coming.” Under the Bundesbank proposal for a system it calls “self-regulation plus,” the HF code of conduct would be modeled after one for rating agencies and include such issues as transparency, corporate governance and risk management. Some funds already have ratings, he says, but they aren’t done by an outside agency. Meister acknowledges that “[c]ountries should not go it alone,” noting that there is currently no consensus among countries how to bring about HF transparency. “Our interest,” Meister said in an FT interview, “is to contribute to global financial stability – that is a core task of a central bank.” On the other hand, it’s not surprising that the call for a code comes from Germany, the hot bed of hedge fund dissent following last year’s hedge fund-led ouster of Werner Seifert as the chief of the Deutsche Börse.