White-Collar Crime and European Financial Crises: Getting Tough on EU Market Abuse

Abstract

The proposed Directive on criminal law sanctions against insider dealing and market manipulation (referred to as ‘market abuse’) offers the first test case of the boundaries of the new criminal law competence provision of Article 83 (2) TFEU. The proposed Directive is accompanied by a proposal for a Regulation, based on Article 114 TFEU, which also aims to fight market abuse, albeit by the use of administrative sanctions. This contribution considers the feasibility of the EU current regime against market abuse and thereby discusses the legal basis of the proposed instruments as well as delicate questions raised by these measures.