EU law and governance have faced a new development – the proliferation of EU enforcement authorities, which have grown in number over the last 15 years. These entities, either acting alone or together with national enforcement authorities, have been investigating and sanctioning private actors on their compliance with EU law. Law Enforcement by EU Authorities investigates whether the system of control (in terms of both judicial and political accountability) has evolved to support the new system of law enforcement in the EU.

EU enforcement authorities are on the rise, entrusted with investigating breaches of EU law by individuals and economic actors. What are the implications for legal practice of their increasing prominence? This book explores this pertinent question from a constitutional and comparative perspective. It sets out the perimeters for composite enforcement and explores the relevant issues such as the interface between criminal and administrative law enforcement, the protection of fundamental rights and legal protection, as well as the admissibility of evidence, including unlawfully obtained evidence. Given the very real implications of the authorities' investigations, this book will appeal to practitioners and scholars, in fields from criminal law to competition and banking law.

This comprehensive Research Handbook investigates the success of EU law enforcement processes. Going beyond traditional analyses of administrations and courts in isolation, it focuses on the increased cooperation seen between national and EU authorities, and on the widening variety of means used to enhance compliance with EU norms.

The existence of a structured enforcement system is an inherent feature of national legal orders and one of the core elements of State sovereignty. The very limited power to issue sanctions has often been deemed a gap in the EC legal order. Over the years, the situation has progressively changed. The Union’s institutional setting is growing in complexity and a variety of agencies has been or is expected to be endowed with law enforcement responsibilities. In addition, the so-called competence creep has led the EU to play an increasingly prominent role in several areas of EU law enforcement, including the issuing of sanctions. This book examines these developments, focusing on both the general features of the EU legal order and the analysis of key-substantive areas, such as banking and monetary union, environmental law, and data protection. The work thus presents a general framework for understanding EU sanctioning based on structural features and general legal principles. Part I develops an analytical framework, tracking the most significant evolutive patterns of EU sanctioning powers. Part II adopts a more practical approach focusing on specific issues and policy areas. The book bridges a gap in existing literature and sheds new light on the relationship between the exercise of jus puniendi and the evolution of EU integration.

It is clear that the current crisis of the EU is not confined to the Eurozone and the EMU, evidenced in its inability to ensure the compliance of Member States to follow the principles and values underlying the integration project in Europe (including the protection of democracy, the Rule of Law, and human rights). This defiance has affected the Union profoundly, and in a multi-faceted assessment of this phenomenon, The Enforcement of EU Law and Values: Ensuring Member States' Compliance, dissects the essence of this crisis, examining its history and offering coping methods for the years to come. Defiance is not a new concept and this volume explores the richness of EU-level and national-level examples of historical defiance – the French Empty Chair policy–, the Luxembourg compromise, and the FPÖ crisis in Austria - and draws on the experience of the US legal system and that of the integration projects on other continents. Building on this legal-political context, the book focuses on the assessment of the adequacy of the enforcement mechanisms whilst learning from EU integration history. Structured in four parts, the volume studies (1) theoretical issues on defiance in the context of multi-layered legal orders, (2) EU mechanisms of acquis and values' enforcement, (3) comparative perspective on law-enforcement in multi-layered legal systems, and (4) case-studies of defiance in the EU.

Presenting an integrated approach to information exchange among law enforcement institutions within the EU, this book addresses the dilemma surrounding the need to balance the security of individuals and the need to protect their privacy and data. Providing the reader with a comprehensive analysis of information exchange tools, exploring their history, political background, the most recent legal modifications and the advantages and disadvantages of their use, it includes a comparison between different information exchange tools. Written by an author who has worked as a police officer, Home Affairs counsellor and academic, this is an important read for scholars working with EU Law, Criminal Procedure Law, and International Law as well as for practitioners who directly deal with international police cooperation or who perform criminal investigation both within and outside the EU.

The EU Law Enforcement Directive (LED): A Commentary provides an article-by-article commentary on the Law Enforcement Directive (Directive 2016/680) edited by two leading scholars in the field of personal data protection.