Van Huffel, Michael --- "The legal framework for financia services and the Internet" [2006] ELECD 413; in Shuibhne, Nic Niamh (ed), "Regulating the Internal Market" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Regulating the Internal Market

Editor(s): Shuibhne, Nic Niamh

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420338

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: The legal framework for financia services and the Internet

Author(s): Van Huffel, Michael

Extract:

6. The legal framework for financial
services and the Internet
Michel Van Huffel1

INTRODUCTION
The European Commission presented its Financial Services Action Plan
(FSAP) on 11 May 1999.2 This FSAP aimed at integrating financial markets
and identified in this respect a series of measures to be undertaken to achieve
these policy objectives. It concerned both the gross market and the retail
market, and one of its core actions was ­ and remains ­ the development of
open and secure markets for retail financial services.3 The FSAP was due to
be completed by 2004,4 and was followed, in December 2005, by a White
Paper on Financial Services Policy for the period 2005­10.5
The legal framework for financial services (which has been substantially
amended, revised and completed since 1999, under the auspices of the FSAP)
has been profoundly influenced by the emergence of the Internet and by the

1 Legal Secretary, European Court of Justice. The views expressed are personal,
and should not be attributed to any institution, member of an institution or administra-
tive service with which the author is, or has been, associated. The author wishes to
thank Ms Kundan Patel for her reading and comments.
2 Communication of the Commission, Implementing the Framework for
Financial Markets: Action Plan, COM (1999) 232; see M. Merlin, `Le plan d'action
sur les services financiers' (2002) vol. 2002/4 Revue du Droit de l'Union européenne
687­709 and D. Kurek, `The EU's Financial Services Action Plan' ( ...