Corporate Governance in the Financial Services Industry - Is there still a Role for Self-Regulation?

Abstract

The financial crisis had a significant impact on the financial services industry from both an economic as well as a regulatory point of view. While the market conditions deteriorated and never bounced back to a pre-crisis level, the regulatory impact has been substantial since a “wave” of new regulation hit the industry. When analyzing in particular the European environment, this new wave of regulation consists of announced reviews of existing regulation but in particular new ad-hoc legislation. Against this background, the paper reviews the changing relationship between state regulation and self-regulation by focussing on the structural and dogmatic shift which can be observed in the sense that self-regulation is continuously pushed aside by detailed and very technical state regulation.