What lies at the heart of financial regulation? Economic principles? Public interest motives? Bureaucratic procedures? Many academics have extensively written on financial regulation. Rarely, practitioners, and in particular European practitioners, have had their say, the opportunity to express their views on how financial regulation is and should be governed.

The book attempts to fill that gap: heads of securities commissions, representatives of self-regulatory organizations and exchanges, and lawyers have debated on the different issues of regulation. They draw the lessons from their experience and their regulatory achievements.

In particular, they reflect upon the key issues of financial regulation, namely, the regulators and their mandate, the mix of self and statutory regulations, the convergence and harmonization of the national financial regulations, the assessment of financial regulation.