The Regulatory Practice of the French Financial Markets Authority, 2006-2011. From Substantive to Procedural Financial Regulation?

Fraud and misconduct in the financial market became in the recent years a key issue of regulation in the context of financial crisis. The paper investigates the French financial supervisor (Autorité des marchés financiers) sanctions policy and practices. It argues that the Autorité des marchés financiers has made a shift over time from a substantive to a procedural regulation of finance. This change consists in departing from a sanction of observed outcomes in the market and, instead, to assess the performance of internal-organizational schemes of financial firms. Therefore the new AMF policy and practice involve a process of legalization of organizations; it also gives evidence of a process of delegation of regulation at the level of financial firms themselves