Are Hollywood movie moguls about to film the next series of spaghetti westerns in Germany? Judging by the trigger-happy attitude of the country's financial regulators, there should be no shortage of extras when the cameras start rolling. The regulators want to play Clint Eastwood and Citigroup has been cast as the bandit.

But doesn't this strike you as comical? First, why has it taken the German sheriffs so long to post "wanted" notices on Citigroup? What have they been doing for the past five months? Second, the controversial short sales of eurozone government bonds in August, which netted Citigroup about $17m at the expense of other marketmakers, was initiated in London and not Frankfurt.