A panel of European Union lawmakers on Monday narrowly rejected a set of new derivatives rules, potentially leading to months of uncertainty for users of regulations instigated during the 2007-09 financial crisis in an effort to make markets safer. The European Parliament's economic affairs committee meeting in Strasbourg, France, voted 24-20 to rethink the rules, which G20 countries had pledged to introduce after the crisis - in which opaque derivatives played a part. The lawmakers felt the rules, authored by regulators, failed to reflect accurately a framework law they had already approved. Committee chair Sharon Bowles, a British Liberal Democrat, accused regulators of "breaching and stretching" the underlying law, but said changes could be "written in an evening" to avoid undue delay for markets. Lawmakers were concerned that exemptions from the rules for "non-financial" companies, such as airlines, which use derivatives to insure against fuel price increases, were worded too
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