It is no exaggeration to say that EU securities regulation is one of the fastest growing fields in European law. Once relatively unexceptionable, it has moved to the forefront of internal market regulation. The establishment of a European System of Financial Supervision (‘ESFS’) testifies to both the EU's efforts and ambitions in this field. For those writing on securities regulation, the pace with which EU securities regulation develops and evolves has become something of a challenge. But it also presents an opportunity to work in a contemporary field and to witness and experience European decision-making and its interactions with national legal systems at first hand.

I finished the manuscript of this book shortly after agreement between Union institutions had been reached on a new ESFS. The fate of the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) was sealed for good and the establishment of a new European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) was being awaited with great expectations. The year 2010 also saw a number of noteworthy reforms taking shape in the prospectus field. These reforms also offered new opportunities to map and examine these developments, but also to revisit earlier work on regulatory competition which I had completed as part of my D.Phil. thesis in Oxford and which is reflected in the final part of this book.