Judicial protection against EU financial supervisory authorities in the wake of regulatory reform

Abstract

European Union (hereinafter ‘EU’) law recently witnessed the creation of a new breed of supervisory authorities capable of addressing binding decisions to market participants. The field of financial regulation offers a most salient illustration. Following a global financial crisis which demonstrated a lack of coordinated and integrated supervisory tools, post-crisis reform initiatives at EU level enabled the introduction of new and upgraded EU supervisory arrangements. The EU’s reform package resulted in the establishment of three fully-fledged supervisory authorities (hereinafter ‘ESAs’), which assemble national supervisors’ representatives. These authorities can adopt binding decisions. Unlike their predecessors, who were informal committees of national supervisors, these authorities have also fully been integrated in the EU institutional framework and its constitutional provisions, demanding effective judicial protection against EU-wide supervisory decisions.