Financial law

This working paper was prepared as a basis for a contribution to a forthcoming volume of the collection Le rapport moral de l'Argent dans le Monde ( The Moral Report of Money in the World). It develops the idea that everyone has the impression that the law is more powerful than ever in banking and financial regulation: Law invades everything and appears in its most terrible form that is criminal and repressive administrative law. It seems that the beginning of everything is Law ! But in reality, we must consider that the law is weaker than ever. Indeed, if the law of banking and financial regulation has become primarily repressive, it is because it is weak. It took the form of a multitude of microscopic rules and  punishment is only lending its force to any prescription. Repression has lost its autonomy, and has become a sort of simple enforcement of civil multiple rules. Moreover, the legislation degenereted into regulations. The Regulation goes into a random pile of incomprehensible and complexe requirements. On the contrary, the operators would need a law that fixed in advance and clearly a few strong lines of conduct. So it is a weak and shoddy law which the banking and financial regulators are building for the future. It will be severe only because it will be weak and  poorly done. The lawyer will be be as chagrined as the financier is.

To read the decision

Full reference: Loi n° 2003-706 du 1 août 2003 de sécurité financière (Law n° 2003-706 of 1st of August 2003 on financial stability)  Read the law (in French)

Full reference: Cour d'Appel de Paris (Paris Court of Appeal), 14th chamber, Section A, 28 novembre 2001, Gecina, n°2001/12014   Read the decision (in French)

Full reference: Cour de Cassation (French judicial Supreme Court), Chambre criminelle (criminal chamber), 26th of October 1995, Pechiney-Triangle, Case 94-83.780 Read the judgment (in French)

Full reference: Cour d'Appel de Paris, 24th of June 1991, Devanlay SA c/ Société des Galeries Lafayette et autres   Read the decision (in French)

Full reference: US congress, Securities Exchange Act, 1934 Read the Act

Full reference: US Supreme Court, 3rd of May 1909, Strong v. Repide, 213 U.S. 419 Read the judgment