Prof Julia Black

This course is available on the Executive LLM. This course is not available as an outside option.

Available to Executive LLM students only. This course will be offered on the Executive LLM during the four year degree period. The Department of Law will not offer all Executive LLM courses every year, although some of the more popular courses may be offered in each year, or more than once each year. Please note that whilst it is the Department of Law's intention to offer all Executive LLM courses, its ability to do so will depend on the availability of the staff member in question. For more information please refer to the Department of Law website.

This course examines the regulatory structures governing financial markets and investment services. It covers the main principles of international, EU and UK financial regulation, with the aim of developing a critical understanding of the dynamics and conceptual framework of financial regulation. The course does not aim to provide a detailed comparative account of financial regulation across countries, but international comparisons may be made where these are useful. In this context, students are encouraged to draw on their knowledge of their own national systems of regulation in making comparisons, and to apply the analytical perspectives suggested to those systems. The focus will be on the regulation of national and international aspects of financial services and markets, rather than on private law and transactional aspects. No previous knowledge of financial market regulation or background in economics is required for those wishing to follow this course. Indeed, the course provides a good background for further study of both financial and economic law and economic analysis of law. For non-lawyers, a willingness to engage in legal analysis will be necessary, although a legal background is not required. The course might be regarded as complimentary to a number of other courses, including Law of Corporate Finance or International Financial Law and Practice I & II. 

-Overview of financial markets, institutions and instruments

-Rationales and techniques of financial regulation

-Regulatory architecture: global, EU and UK

-Macro and micro prudential regulation

-Financial stability and crisis management

-Regulation of intermediaries

-Market abuse and insider dealing

24-26 hours of contact time (for each half unit)

Students will have the option of producing a formative exam question of 2000 words to be delivered one month from the end of the module’s teaching session by email.

A full reading list will be distributed during the course and essential materials will be made available to the students, where possible. In addition, the students will be invited to do independent reading. Good general introductions to financial markets and their regulation include: A Turner et al, The Future of Finance: The LSE Report (2010); H Davies and S Green, Global Financial Regulation (2nd edn, 2010); S Valdez and P. Molyneaux, Introduction to Global Financial Markets (6th edn, 2010).

Either a take-home examination or 8,000 word assessed essay (100%).