Evidence shows that financial integration in the euro area is retrenching at a quicker pace than outside the union. Home bias persists: Governments compete on funding costs by supporting ‘their’ banks with massive state aids, which distorts the playing field and feeds the risk-aversion loop....

After more than a decade of indecision, the EU is finally now set to implement a consistent regulatory architecture for clearing and settlement. Following the agreement on a European market infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), the European Commission has proposed harmonised rules for centralised...

In this new ECMI Policy Brief, Research Fellow Diego Valiante offers his insights into the motivations, potential synergies and implications of the proposed merger between NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse, which he sees as a continuation of the intricate series of dances begun two decades ago...

As part of the European Union’s commitment to deliver greater access to finance for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), EU policy-makers will have to deal with a fragmented market landscape and responses by individual member states to address failures. On the basis of some early...

Over the past five years, the OTC derivatives market showed an impressive resilience in levels of market activity, which are now above pre-crisis levels in outstanding notional value. This confirms its systemic importance. Current volatility of the gross market values and gross credit exposures...

Takeovers are one-off events, altering control and strategy within an organisation. But the chances of becoming the target of a bid, even where remote, daily influence corporate decision-making. Takeover rules are therefore central to company law and the balance of power among managers,...

This report summarises the main results of a survey conducted by the European Capital Markets Institute (ECMI) during the period December 2009 - July 2010. The survey aims to investigate the actual implementation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), two years after it came...

Now that the worst of the financial storm is over, regulators are setting new strategies to deal with the systemic importance of the €427 trillion ($604 trillion) over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market. This paper explores the three major sources of disruptive effects in OTC derivatives:...

In their assessment of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), adopted in April 2004 and implemented at Member State level by the end of 2007, Karel Lannoo and Diego Valiante find that the legislation has been remarkably successful in terms of improving market structure and...

As discussions around the revision of MiFID are heating up, this paper tries to set a new regulatory and institutional framework for multilateral and bilateral execution mechanisms of complex financial instruments, such as over-the-counter derivatives and fixed income products. The author argues...