The UK will merge its Office of Fair Trading (OFT) with its Competition Commission, while Spain and the Netherlands plan to concentrate various competition, sector and consumer authorities into overarching national super-regulators.

FORBES: EU Expected To Hit Hard On Antitrust Enforcement In 2013

Giulio Tremonti, Italy's finance minister, proposes merging four financial regulators into one super-regulator or, failing that, uniting Consob, the toothless securities-market regulator, the Bank of Italy, the banks' watchdog, and the antitrust authority.

ECONOMIST: Parmalat

Dodd continues to champion an idea of creating a super regulator for bank safety and soundness, combining the supervisory roles of the two existing national bank and thrift regulators with the bank regulation duties of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve.

FORBES: Financial Reform: The Legislative Logjam