Brexit, EU Financial Markets and Differentiated Integration

Abstract

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(3), 1265-1285 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. Differentiated law prior to Brexit. - III. Regime complexity and EU relations with non-Member States. - IV. The five worlds of financial market regulation. - IV.1. Securities and assets law and regulation. - IV.2. Banking law and regulation. - IV.3. Financial reporting law and regulation. - IV.4. Company law and regulation. - IV.5. Insurance law and regulation. - V. Conclusions. | (Abstract) How does Brexit affect the manner in which the EU manages financial rules and regulations with the UK? How does it change the EU's need to rely on differentiated law internally to overcome intergovernmental conflict over the proposed legislation? This Article examines five different areas of financial market regulation and shows how significant differences between the UK and the rest of the EU, but often Germany, could only be combined in EU law by significant discretions in how national law applied to a common policy, and protections to keep those distinctions intact. A consequence of Brexit is that the EU need not rely on differentiated law as much as in the past. A risk to this convergence is the potential for the EU becoming a rule taker from the UK through regime complexity, which would allow the UK to de facto determine EU financial market law.

Keywords

• financial regulation
• company law
• harmonisation
• battle of systems
• regime complexity
• legal norms