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AALS Midyear Meeting: Workshop on Blurring Boundaries in Financial and Corporate Law
June 7 – 9, 2014
Monday, June 9, 2014, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
New Frontiers: Innovation, Competition and Collaboration in International Financial Markets
Wulf Kaal, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Eric J. Pan, Associate Director, Office of International Affairs, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C.
Roberta Romano, Yale Law School
Innovation and the mobility of capital have changed global financial markets in profound and consequential ways. Advances in technology and developments in the infrastructure of financial markets have engendered new levels of interconnectivity. The creation of new financial products, the increasing prominence of market participants such as private equity and hedge funds, and the birth of complex trading strategies (namely algorithmic and high-frequency trading) have permanently altered the landscape of financial markets. Operating in this new frontier, significant financial institutions face historically unparalleled vulnerabilities. The financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated the broad range of concerns that challenge government efforts to regulate financial markets.
Responding to the crisis, authorities proposed a diverse array of regulatory reforms. For example, the U.S. Congress and regulators have adopted an aggressive and extraterritorial policy governing domestic and international over-the-counter derivatives, creating a Financial Stability Oversight Council and articulating formal processes to address the insolvency of an international financial market conglomerate. In addition, the highly debated and not-yet-finalized Volker Rule promises to reduce excessive risk taking by systemically important financial institutions and minimize the likelihood of future crises. Other countries’ proposed solutions take a different tack, adopting Vickers- and Liikanen-style “ring-fencing” policies. The trend toward diversity in regulatory approaches overshadows central bankers’ collaborative efforts to craft, implement and enforce the third round of Basel accords.
The debate over uniformity or diversity in regulation provides a forum for evaluating the merits of these various regulatory approaches and the domestic and international actors who inform the discussion. Questions arising from the debate explore the value of efforts to adopt uniform regulatory approaches; the contributions of international regulatory bodies and trade organizations such as the BIS, the G-20, and IOSCO; the benefits and shortcomings of microprudential policies governing banking institutions; and the limits that political accountability and legitimacy pose for each of the governments whose regulatory policies.
Wulf Kaal 