This paper explores the possibility of remedial intervention against the credit rating oligopoly under the competition rules. It is divided in six parts. Following an introduction, Part II provides an overview of the credit rating industry. Part III demonstrates that there is a possible economic...

This paper reviews a considerable number of cases concerning the application of State aid rules to the EU banking sector. The relevance of the financial crisis which hit the lending industry in the '90s determined the Commission to a significant number of State aid reviews of national measures...

This article reviews the use in the flotation of Standard Life plc of the prospectus passport for cross-border offers of securities within the EU that was introduced by the Prospectus Directive (2003). The Standard Life flotation was a major test for the new law on prospectuses and, overall, it...

The paper examines the nexus of foreign ownership and market power in 26 European banking sectors, for the period 1997-2013. The sample comprises 11,761 bank-year estimates of marginal cost and market power, which are then matched with data on the foreign ownership status and presence across all...

As one of the most proactive and prominent International Financial Institutions (IFI) involved in the battle against climate change, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has continued to engage and implement diverse strategies for the promotion of a green and sustainable...

Many changes occurred in the last years in the economic and social framework make this question quite actual. This special issue argues that the new reality created by the great financial crisis has fostered cooperative banks’ development — at least at local level — and allowed them to...

The aim of this paper is to present the changes in the banking sectors of European Union (EU) countries both before the last global financial crisis and during the crisis, with particular emphasis on the change in concentration and competition, in an attempt to determine the relationship between...

Are the grand theories of integration still relevant today and capable of describing integration in the European Union? Have the general principles of the grand theories lost their ability to accurately describe European integration? For policy makers and scholars that rely on theories, the...

This article studies the regulatory strategies to address the potential systemic risk of hedge funds operation in financial markets. Due to the implications of the choice of regulatory strategies and instruments in terms of mitigating systemic risk, the article focuses on one critical aspect of...