VaR calculations are at odds with one another in some European countries due to a contradiction in UCITS Rules, says EM Applications.

The investment risk solutions supplier is concerned that the European Commission's UCITS rules recommend that VaR calculations be made using "recent volatilities (i.e. NO MORE THAN one year)", which EM Applications says became a stipulation that this should state "NOT BE LESS THAN 1 year" when it was transposed into national regulations in Luxembourg, Ireland and Germany.

EM Applications says that this works under interpretation by each country, therefore, and will produce very different results and lead to confusion.

However, the company said this is not due to an error on the part of the EC or the Luxembourg, Irish or German regulators, but is recognition that the historical period used is intrinsic to the purpose of the VaR calculation.

"Whether by design or accident, the UCITS Regulators have come up with the solution to the main issues raised about VaR - collectively they have required investment managers to calculate both a short-term and a long-term VaR," commented Peter Ainsworth, managing director of EM Application. "Had the banks been doing this they would not have operated with so little capital and would have suffered much less harm as a consequence of the sub-prime crisis. All that is needed now is or the EU to amend the UCITS rules to require all jurisdictions to compute both long and short-term VaR and we will have a practical way forward that addresses a major shortcoming of the previous regime."

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