At the end of the 1990s, the European Commission launched the then-considered forward-looking idea of a pan-European private law code merging national legal traditions – both civil and common – and, eventually, replacing them (horizontal approach). The project never became law, and, still...

Although it seems to be undisputed today that the harmonisation of private law in the EU cannot take place without due regard for fundamental rights, many questions still exist as to how and to what extent European private law can and should be influenced by fundamental rights. This chapter aims...

During the last decade, the EU has adopted three major sector-specific directives in the area of retail financial services – the Payment Services Directive, the Consumer Credit Directive, and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. All three directives are based on the idea of 'full,'...

This article analyzes how the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has affected the privacy practices of FinTech firms. We study the content of 308 privacy statements respectively before and after the GDPR became binding. Using textual analysis methods, we find that the readability of the...

When creating the single market in financial services, European Union authorities were initially faced with a choice between mutual recognition or maximalistic harmonisation. From this choice, the European Union fashioned its own third way based on an application of harmonisation of essential...

The EU has become the world’s primary actor in accomplishing multinational regulatory harmony in the field of securities regulation. In its recent adoption of the Investment Services Directive, the EU has completed a critical chapter of its evolving regulatory code for the European capital...