Client protection on European financial markets – from inform your client to know your product and beyond : an assessment of the PRIIPs Regulation, MiFID II/MiFIR and IMD 2
This article aims at assessing some of the most recent developments in European law which are said to improve clients’ protection buying on European financial markets. It focuses on (a) provisions relating to pre-contractual and marketing information obligations, and related liability, supervision and sanction regimes, (b) developments in product governance arrangements which are meant to reduce potential risks of failure to comply with investor protection rules and on (c) “product intervention powers” of supervisory authorities, considered as the last resort measure for investor protection purposes. This article concludes that European regulators move in the right direction where they focus on point-of-sale regulation and product governance arrangements. This article also stresses that appropriate rules should go hand in hand with a change of culture to bring back ethos at manufacturers’ and distributors’. Not only the letter of the rules, but more fundamentally, the spirit of the rules should be complied with at each level of the distribution chain. Only that combination will bring back investors’ confidence for the long-term
