When things go wrong, it is always good to find someone to blame. As the credit crisis started to unfold in 2007, credit rating agencies (“CRAs”) emerged as the villain – or scapegoat, one might say – for commentators and regulators alike. To sum up, observers accused CRAs of doing a...

The protection afforded to franchisees differs widely across the world. Nations with economically strong franchise sectors typically regulate the contract’s bargaining phase and post-formation. Responding to the European Parliament’s call for a review of regulations governing Europe’s...

Regulatory competition in company law has been extensively debated in the last few decades, but it has rarely been discussed whether there could also be regulatory competition in partnership law. This article fills this gap. It addresses the partnership law of the US, the UK, Germany, and...

Online trading platforms and internet communities facilitate access to financial markets and let investors reduce transaction and coordination costs. In this way: (1) they permit many people to be directed towards a single goal, but, at the same time, (2) they allow operations aimed at...

Virtual currencies pose a serious threat to be used for money laundering, weakening the European Union's financial system. Directive (EU) 2018/843 (the fifth anti-money laundering Directive) intends to mitigate these risks by introducing a definition of virtual currencies within Union law. Some...