Since the 17th century, when corporations started to finance their businesses by issuing securities to investors in the open market, the appearance of misleading prospectuses and/or intermediate information to the market has led regulators to promulgate preventive and repressive rules to mitigate such abuses. This occurred both during the South Sea Bubble (1719) and the Great Crash (1929). More recently, the series of corporate scandals (2002-2003) similarly resulted in pressure on regulators and gatekeepers to introduce enhanced investor protection and market regulation, coinciding with the already ongoing worldwide debate on corporate governance. This study focuses on a comparative analysis of the remarkably different regulatory responses that were established on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The book reveals the divergent regulatory policies that were followed to answer the question of whether investors should primarily be protected 'as shareholders' by corporate law or by securities law and market regulation. It offers a useful, analytical, comparative tool for evaluating current corporate and securities law, as well as for assessing the need for, and design of, new regulatory responses. The book will contribute to a better understanding of the key regulatory issues facing lawmakers today. History does not stop and a variety of new questions will ultimately emerge. It underscores that finding clear and efficient regulatory responses to new developments should start with a proper analysis of the aims and means of securities and corporate law.

Assessing regulatory measures taken at the EU level that impact European bond markets, this book examines the desirability, utility, and feasibility of certain policy measures.

The book examines the role of credit rating agencies (CRAs) in the subprime mortgage crisis. The CRAs are blamed for awarding risky securities ‘3-A’ investment grade status and then failing to downgrade them quickly enough when circumstances changed, which led to investors suffering substantial losses. The causes identified by the regulators for the gatekeeper failure were conflicts of interest (as the issuers of these securities pay for the ratings); lack of competition (as the Big Three CRAs have dominated the market share); and lack of regulation for CRAs. The book examines how the regulators, both in the US and EU, have sought to address these problems by introducing soft law self-regulation in accordance with the International Organisation of Securities Commissions Code and hard law statutory regulation, such as that found in the “Reform Act” and “Dodd-Frank Act” in the US and similar provisions in the EU. The highly topical book examines these provisions in detail by using a doctrinal black-letter law method to assess the success of the regulators in redressing the problems identified. It also examines the US case law regulation relating to the legal liability of CRAs. The book examines whether the regulations introduced have had a deterrent effect on the actions of CRAs, whether investors are compensated for their losses, and how the regulators have dealt with the issues of conflicts of interest and an anti-competitive environment. Should liability be introduced for CRAs through changes in the law so as to compel them to issue reliable ratings and solve the current problems? The book seeks to simplify the complex issues involved and is backed by concrete evidence; as such, it will appeal to both the well-informed and the lay general public who are interested in learning more about the role of CRAs in the sub-prime mortgage crisis and regulators’ attempts to remedy the situation. Novice readers can familiarise themselves with the legal and financial terminology used by referring to the glossary at the end of the book.

PART I: GENERAL ASPECTS 1: Introduction, Danny Busch and Guido Ferrarini PART II: INVESTMENT FIRMS AND INVESTMENT SERVICES 2: The Scope of MiFID II, Kitty Lieverse 3: Governance of Investment Firms under MiFID II, Jens-Hinrich Binder 4: The Overarching Duty to Act in the Best Interest of the Client in MiFID II, Luca Enriques and Matteo Gargantini 5: Product Governance and Product Intervention, Danny Busch 6: Independent Financial Advice, Paolo Giudici 7: Conflicts of Interest, Stefan Grundmann and Philipp Hacker 8: Inducements, Larissa Silverentand, Jasha Sprecher, and Lisette Simons 9: Agency and Principal Dealing Under MiFID, Danny Busch 10: MiFID II/MiFIR's Regime for Third-Country Firms, Danny Busch & Marije Louisse PART III: TRADING 11: TGovernance and Organization of Trading Venues: The Role of Financial Market Infrastructures Groups, Guido Ferrarini & Paolo Saguato 12: EU Financial Governance and Transparency Regulation: A Test for the Effectiveness of Post-Crisis Administrative Governance, Niamh Moloney 13: SME Growth Markets, Carmine di Noia & Rudiger Veil 14: Dark Trading Under MiFID II, Peter Gomber & Ilya Gvozdevskiy 15: Derivatives: Trading, Clearing, STP, Indirect Clearing, and Portfolio Compression, Rezah Stegeman & Aron Berket 16: Commodity Derivatives, Antonella Sciarrone Alibrandi & Edoardo Grossule 17: Algorithmic Trading and High Frequency Trading, Pierre-Henri Conac 18: An American perspective, Merritt Fox PART IV: SUPERVISION AND ENFORCEMENT 19: Public Enforcement of MiFID II, Christos Gortsos 20: The Private Law Effect of MiFID: the Genil Case and Beyond, Danny Busch PART V: THE BROADER VIEW AND THE FUTURE OF MIFID 21: MiFID II: Picking up the Crumbs of a Piecemeal Approach, Veerle Colaert 22: Shadow Banking and the Functioning of Financial Markets, Eddy Wymeersch 23: Investment-based Crowdfunding: Is MiFID II enough?, Guido Ferrarini & Eugenia Macchiavello.

This article argues that the European Union (EU) has been instrumental in moving the United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from a policy of national treatment of foreign (non-US) issuers to a policy of mutual recognition of financial disclosure regulation based on convergence between US Generally Accepted Accounting Standards (GAAP) and international accounting standards (IFRS). Further, future initiatives based on a substantial equivalence model are under consideration by the SEC.The mutual recognition concept in financial regulation was a construct of the EU. Despite arguments that the US SEC should similarly engage in mutual recognition of foreign financial institutions and public company disclosure documents, the SEC insisted upon national treatment of foreign issuers and financial institutions. At the end of 2007, however, the SEC determined to accept IFRS rather than US GAAP in SEC filings by foreign issuers. Further, the SEC has suggested that it may permit foreign stock exchanges and perhaps foreign broker-dealers to engage in business in the United States based on mutual recognition if a foreign jurisdiction has a regulatory regime that is equivalent to the regulatory regime of the US in terms of investor protection. This significant change in SEC policy was largely the result of political pressure put on the SEC by the EU and a cooperative effort on the part of the SEC and the EU. On the other hand, securities regulatory reform in the EU made such cooperation possible.

Today, individual U.S. retail investors have virtually limitless opportunities to invest their money, with a notable exception: they cannot directly invest in securities of foreign issuers and still be protected under U.S. law. This missing opportunity deprives U.S. investors of the ability to fully diversify their investments and also imposes undue costs and risks upon investors seeking to invest directly overseas. This Article shows that a Securities and Exchange Commission (quot;SECquot;) policy of quot;mutual recognitionquot; of foreign regulatory regimes that achieve investor protection outcomes comparable to those of the SEC would solve this problem. A foreign issuer or other entity seeking to access U.S. capital markets should be permitted to substitute compliance with its home country's investor protection regulations for compliance with U.S. regulation, as long as it agreed to submit to SEC antifraud jurisdiction in its dealings with U.S. investors. The foreign entity would thereby not have to comply with federal securities law to have access to individual U.S. investors, as is currently the case. Similarly, U.S. entities should be permitted to enter foreign markets without subjecting themselves to a second layer of regulation on top of what the SEC already requires.Under an outcome-based approach to transnational investment, U.S. companies could then opt for foreign regulation and sell securities to U.S. investors as foreign-regulated issuers, as could foreign entities with respect to their home regulator. Allowing firms to choose a regulator from the set of nations with comparable investor protections would intensify the regulatory competition already taking place around the globe, and help to ensure that such competition serves the interests of investors.