Suchergebnisse

Digital Innovation in Financial Services' is a comprehensive legal assessment of FinTech or digital financial innovation covering its potential applications to payments, securities clearing and settlement, crowd-funding, and central banking. It is the first systematic attempt at proposing a conceptual framework against which to consider the most advisable regulatory policy approach vis-à-vis this incipient phenomenon. Consumer behaviour is rapidly trending towards the use of digital devices as instruments through which to transact day-to-day business. This book shows how the global digitisation trend and the steadily rising consumer demand for innovation in the field of financial services create new opportunities not only for retail consumers but also for financial service providers, regulators, and central banks. The author offers a comprehensive overview of these opportunities and their countervailing legal and regulatory challenges

In the wake of the second decade of the 21st Century, European securities markets remain fragmented along national borders in terms of the rules, procedures and practices that regulated markets in different Member States apply for the primary issuance and distribution of transferable securities. This paper explores how the creation of a European Central Securities Depository for the primary issuance and distribution of securities across the European Union could help overcome fragmentation in the primary issuance market. We conclude that, even if desirable, the creation of a European Central Securities Depository could only achieve its objectives in combination with the introduction of a de minimis body of European private securities law to complement and render its creation meaningful and effective. It is the introduction of precisely such a body of law that would represent the most significant (even if only indirect) contribution of a European Central Securities Depository towards more harmonisation in primary issuance processes across the European Union.

Using as a starting point the landmark ruling of the European Court of Justice in Apostolides v. Orams this Article examines the interpretation of the concept of public policy and its concrete application in the jurisprudence of the English and other national and supranational courts as a bar to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, with an emphasis on situations where the competing acts of unrecognized foreign states or governments are at stake.

Despite having been part and parcel of the European asset management universe for several years, hedge funds have been bypassed by the regulatory initiatives which have recently transformed Europe's financial services landscape. That concerted action has yet to be undertaken in this field and that the European market for the cross-border distribution of hedge fund products continues to be fragmented has less to do with the absence of a European debate on hedge fund regulation than it has to do with the lack of a clear vision on what the future should hold for them. The purpose of this article is to critically examine hitherto European initiatives and proposals for the future regulation of hedge funds, assessing the prospect of their transformation into concrete regulatory action in the foreseeable future. Our account of European initiatives will be preceded by an inquiry into the treatment of hedge funds under Community law and by a brief comparative examination of contemporary hedge fund regulation in the EU.

This article uses a recent ruling of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales as the starting point for an enquiry into the interpretation of Protocol no. 10 to the Act of Accession 2003 and, more particularly, into its effects on requests for the recognition and enforcement of Cypriot court judgments formulated on the basis of the Brussels I Regulation. The High Court's ruling is of some significance, not only because Protocol no. 10 becomes, for the first time since its adoption, the subject matter of judicial interpretation but, also, because of its value as a test case on the European judiciary's perception of the impact of the reforms wrought by the Brussels I Regulation on the status quo ante in this field and as an illustration of the wider legal complications inherent in the participation in the European Union of a de facto divided Member State. This article also anticipates some of the arguments that the Court of Appeal and, eventually, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights might be faced with in deciding how best to address the broader legal issues that this case raises.

Abstract

Often touted as the opposite of money and banks, crypto-assets and their ecosystem may gradually be coming to terms with the idea that their success will also depend on their issuers' readiness to adhere to conventional financial practices, on their acceptance of the preponderant role that banks have to play in the financial system, and on their ability to access basic banking services. Some within the banking community are starting to reciprocate the attention, by positioning themselves so as to serve the needs of crypto assets and their ecosystem, as a promising source of revenue at a challenging time for bank profitability. No less important for the emergence of crypto-friendly banks than the risk appetite of existing or new banking service providers is the regulators', supervisors' and policy makers' stance vis-à-vis crypto-friendly banking. This paper explores the relationship of dependency between crypto and banks, how some banks around the world are facing up to the challenge of serving crypto-assets and their holders, and how policy makers, regulators and supervisors in Europe and elsewhere may want to position themselves vis-à-vis the incipient phenomenon of crypto-friendly banking.