The European Union banking and securities legislation immediately before the global financial crisis is described in detail. Two significant inputs to the post-crisis legislation are considered in this book the international regulatory response through the Group of Twenty (G20) countries and the Financial Services Board, and the European Supervisory Authorities which comprise the European Banking Authority, a European Securities and Markets Authority and a European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority. Aspects of the post-crisis securities and banking legislation are described with a comparison made with the pre-crisis legislation, in places in which this is possible. The securities legislation, in particular, has shown a considerable increase in its volume and contents in the last few years, and some of these provisions are reported and discussed. The final chapter considers the European Commissions plans for the completion of the Economic and Monetary Union, from the British perspective in light of the speech made by the then British Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher MP, at Bruges in September 1988. The global financial crisis exposed vulnerabilities in the Economic and Monetary Union, which the Commission is attempting to address with plans for further integration. It is not clear that this is wholly in the interests of Europes citizens.
Graeme Baber is an independent legal researcher, specializing in international, European and United Kingdom financial law. He has published more than 30 articles, comments, briefings and updates over these areas, many as a regular contributor to The Company Lawyer journal. He has published 2 monographs with Cambridge Scholars Publishing, entitled The Impact of Legislation and Regulation on the Freedom of Movement of Capital in Estonia, Poland and Latvia and The Free Movement of Capital and Financial Services: An Exposition?, and is currently writing a series of essays with that publisher. He is an experienced teacher of university students, his pride of place being an LL.M module entitled International Business Law, which he wrote and taught from 2010 to2015 at BPP University and as the sole tutor from September 2011. Graeme's other interests comprise musical performance on organ and pianoforte especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Joseph Haydn. He is also a composer of both sacred and secular pieces, and a keen scenic and garden photographer.