Reminder: AALS Annual Meeting, New York City, Joint Program of the Financial Institutions and European Law Sections (January 3, 2014, 10:30 AM)

A reminder regarding the AALS Annual Meeting in New York on January 2-5, 2014:  The Section on Financial Institutions & Consumer Financial Services and the Section on European Law are co-sponsoring a joint program entitled “Taking Stock of Post-Crisis Reforms: Local, Global, and Comparative Perspectives on Financial Sector Regulation.”  The program will take place on Friday, January 3, 2014, at 10:30 am, and network member Peter Lindseth (UConn) will chair.  Speakers will include Bob Hockett (Cornell) and Anna Gelpern (Georgetown), along with papers selected in response to the the CFP by Hilary Allen (Loyola-New Orleans) [paper here], Sabeel Rahman (Harvard) [paper here], and Art Wilmarth (GW) [paper here]. 

Take note that each section will have a business meeting immediately following the conclusion of the panel (the European Law Section's will be over lunch -- more details here).  An overview of the program is immediately below and otherwise we look forward to seeing many of you in New York.

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The financial crisis of 2008 was truly a global crisis, and the world continues to face a wide range of post-crisis economic and political challenges. Today, several years after the market turmoil began, both the United States and the European Union are in the midst of major regulatory reforms in the financial services sector. The effects of these financial regulation reforms however, remain unclear. Structural reform in the U.S. is thus far limited to a yet-to-be finalized "Volcker Rule," while in the U.K. and the Eurozone, respectively, Vickers- and Liikanen-style "ring-fencing" remain incomplete if not inchoate.  Debate in the U.S. still rages around whether and how smaller "community banks" should be regulated differently from megabanks, while the E.U. continues to debate whether to form a "banking union" at all and, if so, what it might or could entail, given various political constraints.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve continues to innovate in the realm of monetary policy in the absence of functional fiscal policy, while the European Central Bank moves furtively toward acting as a full Fed-style central bank capable of backstopping sovereign debt instruments and providing real liquidity.  Where might these multiple developments be ultimately heading, and what might the Americans and Europeans learn from each other as they grope tentatively forward? What broader implications do they raise for political accountability and legitimacy in a post-crisis world?