The AIFMD provides a harmonized European framework for regulating alternative investment funds. Prior to discussing its details, this chapter introduces to the AIFMD, discussing the developments that led to its adoption (Part 1), the AIFMD's principal objectives (Part 2) and its key tools for...

This study aims to analyse the provisions of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council (2011/61/EU) which pertain to its scope. It is divided into two Sections:(a) Section A offers an overview of the legal framework governing alternative...

We study the use of “heartbeat trades” by ETFs in explaining their superior tax efficiency. By relying on the in-kind-redemption exemption rule, authorized participants help ETFs avoid distributing realized capital gains and reduce their tax overhang. In recent years, ETFs end up with 0.92%...

Financial regulation has recently focused on “too big to fail” institutions such as banks and insurance companies by assigning to some of them the designation of “systemically important”, which brings additional regulatory requirements on top of the traditional requirements. In 2015...

Post-crisis European reforms have focused on 'micro' measures, like shoring up financial institutions, ensuring their solvency and sound supervision, and the resolution to deal with them in a crisis. However, bold 'macro' measures to deal with problems that cut across the whole financial sector...

This paper examines the supervision of Central Clearing Counterparties (CCPs) in Europe, since they function as an important pillar of the Capital Markets Union. Our research indicates that the current national-based supervision of CCPs leads to regulatory arbitrage and exposes the EU to huge...

The present article contains a brief but comprehensive overview of the development of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) project in the EU to further deepen EU capital markets’ integration. After the Introduction, it first discusses the Commission’s 2015 CMU Action Plan and its follow-up,...

The aim of the present University notes is to provide a brief but comprehensive overview of the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council “on Markets in Crypto-Assets (…)” (MiCAR), which was submitted on 24 September 2020. It is not...

The reform of the Transparency Directive is presently on the political agenda, with one of the key questions focussing on the level of harmonisation: Should the current minimum harmonisation be retained or is a move towards full harmonisation advisable? After confirming legal competence for the...

In this article, we study the choice of issuer location and regulatory competition in the European corporate debt market. We find that, in absolute terms, Germany has by far the highest outflow of debt issues, while the Netherlands, the UK, Luxembourg and Ireland see the most inflows (in that...