Supervision and regulation authorities' impartiality and independence are conditioned to the fact that their members do not have any conflict of interest with the sector that they supervise or regulate. Such an absence of conflict of interest is necessary to guarantee a climate of trust between the authority and operators. This supposes that regulation and supervision authority members do not cumulate functions of operator and of regulator/supervision during but also after their mandate in the regulation/supervision authority because the anticipation of a future hiring can influence present decisions.
On 2nd of August 2019, the executive director of the European Banking Authority (EBA) informed the authority of its willingness to become PDG of the Association des marchés financiers en Europe, lobby of the financial sector. EBA approved this perspective. However, "Change Finance", a civil coalition, sized the European Mediator explaining that such a professional reorientation created an inevitable conflict of interest. The European Mediator reacted on 7th of May 2020 through a recommendation saying that although EBA took preventive measures, theses measures are not sufficient with regard to the risks. In this recommendation, the European Mediator also made some general propositions to manage future conflicts of interest:
The interdiction for senior managers to have positions able to create a conflict of interest for two years.
The information of senior managers and candidates to senior managers positions of the actual rules.
The implementation of internal procedures blocking access to confidential information to the member who notified its willingness to occupy later a position able to constitute a conflict of interest with its current position.
In a letter of 28th of August 2020, the president of EBA told to the European Mediator that he accepts these remarks and propositions.
In this particular case, we can draw three lessons:
The difficult articulation between independence/impartiality (necessary for trust) and regulator/supervisor expertise. The European Mediator and the ABE are agree that the interdiction to get some positions must be limited in time.
The necessity that everyone can anticipate rules correctly.
On 18th of September 2020, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) published a report about the impact of Rule of Law on Economic Growth.
The EESC defines the Rule of Law as the obligation to "all public powers act within the constraints laid down by law, in accordance with the values of democracy and fundamental rights, and under the control of independent and impartial courts". According to the Committee, the Rule of Law thus defined is favorable and even necessary to a durable economic growth especially because instability of regulations, absence of guarantee of labor and property rights, discrimination or non-application of contracts poorly favors or are detrimental for investments and economic agents' productive activities. The EESC observes by the way that countries which respect the Rule of Law grow more rapidly than those which do not respect it. The Committee also insists on the destructive effect of corruption which destroys public services, public action, public institutions on the long run and confidence, increasing inequalities.
Although EESC approves the actions of European Commission to advance Rule of Law in the Union, it however invites the Commission to continue its efforts by giving a more important place to jurisdictions and by protecting better media freedom in a context of rising autocratic forces in Eastern Europe.
We can learn three lessons from this report:
The common interest of European Union States to guarantee the Rule of Law. Indeed, Rule of Law is not only written in article 2 of TFEU and has been consecrated by CJEU case law, it is also a condition of economic progress.
The fight against corruption must be the object of a redoubled effort. In this perspective, Compliance Law is able to offer appropriate innovating legal tools.
To a definition of Regulation and Compliance Law as a simple process of application of mechanical legal rules, it is necessary to substitute a definition of Regulation and Compliance Law based on the notion of "monumental goals" and people protection. In this perspective, these branches of Law would prove to be powerful tools in the service of the advancement of the rule of law in the European space.
It is believed that the lexical distinction between two words necessarily involves the allusion to two different things. In this view, economic regulation differs from financial regulation. Based on what financial regulation is, which is not reduced to an addition of rules and regulations but is a set of mechanisms, institutions, decisions, principles and rules revolving around risk, competition law could be used as a means for financial regulation, although it is usually solely applied to ordinary markets of goods and services. But a new ambiguity has surfaced between financial regulation and economic regulation. Therefore, a wall between economic regulation and financial regulation cannot be built on the single difference between the “economic sector” such as the market of goods and services, and the “financial sector”. A more sophisticated partition could take into account the notion of « individual risk ».
GERMAN
Der Unterschied zwischen wirtschaftliche und finanzielle Regulierung.
Normalerweise weist ein lexikalischer Unterschied zwischen zwei Wörter darauf hin, dass man von zwei verschiedene Sachen spricht. Also sind die wirtschaftliche und die finanzielle Regulierung unterschiedlich. Die finanzielle Regulierung ist nicht eine ledigliche Addition von Gesetzen und Anordnungen, sondern eine Zusammenstellung von Mechanismen, Institutionen, Entscheidungen, Prinzipien und regeln, die sich mit dem Thema Risiko beschäftigen. Anhand dieser Tatsache könnte das Wettbewerbsrecht, das normalerweise erst für gewöhnlichen Waren- und Dienstleistungenmärkte gebraucht ist, auch im finanziellen Bereich Anwendung finden. Jetzt aber hat sich eine neue Zweideutigkeit zwischen wirtschaftlicher und finanzieller Regulierung entwickelt. Infolgedessen kann eine Begrenzung zwischen beide Regulierungen nicht nur aufgrund den Unterschied zwischen dem wirtschaftlichen (wie z.B. der Güter- und Dienstleistungensmarkt) und dem finanziellen Sektor. Eine anspruchsvollere Unterscheidung könnte den Begriff "individuellen Risiko" integrieren.
SPANISH
La distinción entre la Regulación económica y la Regulación financiera.
Se cree que la distinción léxica entre dos palabras necesariamente involucra la alusión a dos cosas. Teniendo esto en cuenta, la regulación económica difiere de la regulación financiera. Basándonos en lo que es la regulación financiera, lo cual no se reduce a una simple adición de reglas y regulaciones pero por lo contrario está compuesta por una serie de mecanismos, instituciones, decisiones, principios y reglas que dependen del riesgo, se podría decir que la ley de la competencia puede ser utilizado para la regulación financiera, aunque normalmente solo se aplica a mercados ordinario de bienes y servicios. Pero una nueva ambigüedad se ha dado entre la regulación financiera y la regulación económica. Por lo tanto, es imposible construir una pared entre la regulación económica y la regulación financiera basado simplemente en la diferencia entre el ‘sector financiero’ como lo es el mercado de bienes y servicios y el sector financiero. Una partición más sofisticada podría tomar en cuenta la noción del “riesgo individual.”
The European Directive of September 16th 2009 introduces a clear definition of electronic money and establishes a new prudential supervisory regime of the business of electronic money institutions.
The translated summaries are done by the Editors and not by the Authors.
ENGLISH
“Global Financial Integration, Thirty Years on. From reform to crisis”
combines many academic contributions on international financial
governance, that each offer original and in-depth analysis of the
financial crisis’ causes. To safeguard the authors’ legal and economic
reasoning, the bibliographical report has been divided in three parts
and will be brought to The Journal of Regulation’s readers in three
successive issues . The following report analyses the third part of the
volume.
In The Journal of Regulation the summaries’ translation are done by the Editors and not by the authors
ENGLISH
While financial regulation aims at achieving market stability, regulating markets can sometimestake an ironic turn when regulations end up having consequencesthat differ from their original regulatory purpose. The article provides such an example of regulation’s irony: how a regulatory change in Germany led Moody’s to downgrade 12 banks, therefore weakening such institutions and consequently enhancing the current issues of market volatility and credit cost.
FRENCH
Bien que la réglementationfinancière vise àassurer la stabilitédu marché, la régulation des marchéspeut parfoisprendre une tournureironique quandla régulation finit par avoirdes conséquencesqui diffèrent deson objectifde régulationd’origine.L’article fournitun exemplede l’ironie de la régulation : commentun changement de réglementationen Allemagne a conduitMoody’sà déclasser12 banques allemandes,, donc à affaiblirces institutions etpar conséquentà accroître les problèmes actuels dela volatilité du marchéet le coûtdu crédit.
ITALIAN
Quando la regolazione è volta ad ottenere la stabilità del mercato, l’evoluzione di questi mercati oggetto di tale regolazione può essere particolarmente ironica quando la regolazione ha delle conseguenze ben differenti da quelle originariamente prepostesi. Questo articolo cerca quindi di mettere in evidenza un esempio di questa ironia: in effetti, un cambio di regolatore in Germania ha portato Moody’s a tagliare il rating di 12 banche, indebolendo ancora di più tali istituzioni ed aumentando si conseguenza le questioni relative alla volatilità del mercato e del costo del credito.
