ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳

Professor Niamh Moloney

Professor Niamh Moloney

Professor of Law

ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law School

Telephone
020-7955-7689
Room No
Cheng Kin Ku Building 7.09
Languages
English
Key Expertise
EU Financial Regulation and Consumer Financial Protection

About me

Niamh Moloney specializes in EU financial markets regulation. Educated at Trinity College Dublin and Harvard Law School, she is a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Zurich. Niamh’s recent books include EU Securities and Financial Markets Regulation (4th edition, 2023), The Age of ESMA. Governing EU Financial Markets (2018), and Brexit and Financial Services. Law and Policy (2018, with Alexander, Barnard, Ferran, and Lang). Niamh is an editorial board member of several journals, including the European Law Review, a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation, and a Series Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on International Corporate Law and Financial Market Regulation. She is currently a member of the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Council, the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳’s governing body.

Niamh serves as an independent, non-executive director of the board of the Central Bank of Ireland and as a member of the Board of Appeal of the European Supervisory Authorities. She was Chair of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare, established by the government of Ireland in 2021 to review the state’s taxation and welfare systems, which reported in 2022 ().  Niamh is also a member of the Advisory Scientific Council of Better Finance (the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users) and a member of the Advisory Academic Committee of the European Capital Markets Institute. Previously, Niamh was Special Adviser to the 2014-2015 inquiry by the UK Parliament House of Lords EU Select Committee into the EU’s regulatory response to the financial crisis.

Administrative support: Law.Reception@lse.ac.uk

Research interests

Niamh's main research interest is to explore the EU's regulation of financial markets from institutional, substantive, and contextual perspectives. She is particularly interested in the consumer markets and in ESMA’s role in EU financial markets.

External activities

Niamh serves as an independent non-executive director of the board of the Central Bank of Ireland and as a member of the Board of Appeal of the European Supervisory Authorities. She was Chair of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare, established by the government of Ireland in 2021 to review the state’s taxation and welfare systems, which reported in 2022 ().  Niamh is also a member of the Advisory Scientific Council of Better Finance (the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users) and a member of the Advisory Academic Committee of the European Capital Markets Institute.

Niamh’s previous public service includes member and Chair, Consumer Advisory Group, Central Bank of Ireland and member, inaugural and second Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). She was Special Adviser to the 2014-2015 inquiry by the UK Parliament House of Lords EU Select Committee into the EU’s regulatory response to the financial crisis. Niamh also served as a member of the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s advisory Financial Services Consumer Panel and has acted as an expert witness for UK Parliament Select Committee and European Parliament inquiries on financial market regulation.

Teaching

Books

EU Securities and Financial Markets Regulation (OUP 2023) 4th edition

This new edition is heavily revised from the third edition to reflect developments since 2014, including the Capital Markets Union agenda, the Covid-19 reform agenda, and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. It adopts the in-depth contextual and analytical approach of the earlier editions of this authoritative work and so considers the market, political, institutional, and international context of the regulatory and supervisory regime.

 


 

The Age of ESMA. Governing EU Financial Markets (Hart Publishing, 2018)

Since its establishment in 2011, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has become a pivotal actor in EU financial market regulation and supervision. Its burgeoning influence extends from the rule-making process to supervisory convergence/coordination to direct supervision. Reflecting the now critical importance of ESMA to how the EU regulates and supervises financial markets, and with ESMA at an inflection point in its evolution, particularly in light of the Commission’s 2017 proposals to reform ESMA and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, The Age of ESMA maps, contextualises, and examines ESMA’s role and the implications for EU financial market governance.

 


  

Brexit and Financial Services: Law and Policy (Hart Publishing, 2018), with Professors Kern Alexander, Catherine Barnard, Eilís Ferran, and Andrew Lang)

This timely book examines the legal and regulatory implications of Brexit for financial services. As the UK disentangles its financial system from the EU, law will matter to a profound extent. Treaties, legislation, and regulation, at UK, EU, and international levels, and the many dynamics and interests which drive them, will frame and shape the ultimate settlement between the UK and the EU, as well as how the EU financial system develops post-Brexit and how the international financial system responds. Written by leading authorities in the field, this book addresses and contextualises the legal, regulatory, and policy issues across five dimensions, which correspond to the major legal spheres engaged: financial regulation implications and market access consequences for the UK financial system; labour law and free movement consequences for the UK financial system; the implications internally for EU financial governance and the euro area; the implications and relevance of the EEA/EFTA financial services market; and the trade law and World Trade Organization law implications.



 

Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation (OUP, 2015) (ed. with Professor Eilís Ferran and Professor Jennifer Payne)

The financial system and its regulation have undergone exponential growth and dramatic reform over the last thirty years. This period has witnessed major developments in the nature and intensity of financial markets, as well as repeated cycles of regulatory reform and development, often linked to crisis conditions. The recent financial crisis has led to unparalleled interest in financial regulation from policymakers, economists, legal practitioners, and the academic community, and has prompted large-scale regulatory reform. The Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation is the first comprehensive, authoritative, and state-of-the-art account of the nature of financial regulation. Written by an international team of leading scholars in the field, it takes a contextual and comparative approach to examine scholarly, policy, and regulatory developments in the past three decades.


 

EU Securities and Financial Markets Regulation (OUP, 2014, 3 edition)

EU Securities and Financial Markets Regulation provides the first comprehensive, critical, and contextual account of the vast new rule-book which now applies to the EU financial market in the aftermath of the seismic reforms which have followed the financial crisis. Topics covered in-depth include the AIFMD, EMIR, the Short Selling Regulation, the new market abuse and transparency regimes, the rating agency regime, the UCITS IV-VI reforms, and MiFID II/MiFIR; the analysis is wide-reaching, extending to secondary legislation and relevant soft law.


 

The Regulatory Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis  (Cambridge University Press 2012) (with Eilís Ferran, Jennifer G. Hill, John C. Coffee, Jr)

The EU and the US responded to the global financial crisis by changing the rules for the functioning of financial services and markets and by establishing new oversight bodies. With the US Dodd–Frank Act and numerous EU regulations and directives now in place, this book provides a timely and thoughtful explanation of the key elements of the new regimes in both regions, of the political processes which shaped their content and of their practical impact. Insights from areas such as economics, political science and financial history elucidate the significance of the reforms. Australia's resilience during the financial crisis, which contrasted sharply with the severe problems that were experienced in the EU and the US, is also examined. The comparison between the performances of these major economies in a period of such extreme stress tells us much about the complex regulatory and economic ecosystems of which financial markets are a part.


 

Law Reform and Financial Markets (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2011) (ed. K. Alexander)

Law Reform and Financial Markets addresses how law reform can be used to support strong financial markets and draws on the global financial crisis as a case study.


 

How to Protect Investors. Lessons from the EC and the UK (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Taking as a case study the wide-ranging investor protection regime which governs Europe's retail markets after an intense reform period, the book provides a critical, comparative and contextual examination of the nature of investor protection, exploring why the retail investor should be protected, whether retail investor engagement with the markets should be encouraged, and how investor-protection laws should be designed, particularly in light of the financial crisis.


 

EC Securities Regulation 2nd. ed. (Oxford University Press, 2008)

 

In the wake of radical and far-reaching legal, market, and institutional reforms which followed the completion of the Financial Services Action Plan, the EC regime for securities regulation now governs Community financial markets and has almost replaced national law in this area. This long-awaited second edition of EC Securities Regulation considers the extensive new regime in its legal, institutional, political, and market context and assesses the forces which have shaped it.

 

 

 

 

Articles

  • (2024) 25 European Business Organization Law Review
  • ‘Bank Resolution and Fundamental Rights: a Note from the UK’ (2024)  ZBB (Journal of Banking Law and Banking) 47
  •  (2023) 42 Oxford Yearbook of European Law
  • 'Third Countries and EU Financial Market Access: Technocracy, Politics, and the End of Deference?'  in Jaeger et al eds., Consolidating Brexit (Verlag, 2023) 203
  • ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Legal Studies Working Paper No. 16/2023
  •  ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Legal Studies Working Paper No. 14/2023 (with Colm O'Reardon)
  • 'Retail Investor Protection and Empowerment: Observations from a Survey of the EU’s Regulatory Experiment and in light of Covid-19' in A Laby (ed),  (Cambridge University Press, 2022) 76
  • 'Financial Services and Brexit: Unfinished Business for the UK and EU' in F Fabrinni (ed), (Oxford University Press, 2021) 115
  • Securities Law Journal (Cadernos do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários) (2021) 801
  •  Brexit Institute Working Paper Series No 3/2021 
  • ‘The EU Capital Market: a project for the next thirty years’ in D Chad, E Heins and D Scott (eds), (Routledge, 2021) 21
  • ‘Banking Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights’ in C Ziloli and K-P Wojcek (eds), (Elgar, 2021) 209
  • (with Pierre-Henri Conac) 17 European Company and Financial Law Review (2020) 363
  • ‘Reflections on ESMA at a Crossroads’ in (de Gruyter, 2020) 779
  • ‘Reflections on the EU Third Country Regime for Capital Markets in the Shadow of Brexit’ 17 European Company and Financial Law Review (2020) 35
  • ‘Close Cooperation: the SSM Institutional Framework and Lessons from the ESAs’ in (ECB, 2019) 296-313
  • 'The European Supervisory Authorities and Discretion: Can the Functional and Constitutional Circles be Squared?' in J Mendes (ed), (Oxford University Press, 2019) 85
  • 'Technocratic and Centralized Decision-making in Banking Union’s Single Supervisory Mechanism: Can Single Market and Banking Union Governance Effectively Co-exist in a post-Brexit World?' in H Micklitz and S Grundmann (eds), The European Banking Union. Constitutional Beacon for Advanced Integration or Deathknell for Democracy? (Hart Publishing, 2019) 141
  • 'Capital Markets Union, Third Countries and Equivalence: Law, Markets and Brexit' in  D Busch, E Avgouleas, and G Ferrarini (eds),   (Oxford University Press, 2018) 97
  • ‘EU Financial Market Governance and the Retail Investor: Reflections at an Inflection Point’ 37 Oxford Yearbook of European Law (2018) 251
  •  (2018) 55 Common Market Law Review 175
  • 'EU Financial Governance after Brexit: the rise of technocracy and the absorption of the UK’s withdrawal' in K Alexander, C Barnard, E Ferran, A Lang and N Moloney, (Hart Publishing, 2018) 
  • 40 (5) Fordham International Law Journal (2017) 1335
  • 'Extracting the UK from EU Financial Services Governance: Regulatory Recasting or Shadowing from a Distance?' in M Dougan (ed), The UK after Brexit. Legal and Policy Challenges (Intersentia, 2017) 135
  • ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 05/2017
  • ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law Policy Briefing: Brexit Special Issue 25/2017
  • 'EU Financial Governance and Brexit: Institutional Change or Business as Usual?' 42(1) European Law Review (2017) 112
  • 'The EU in Global Financial Governance' 3 (1) Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences (2017) 138-152
  • 'EU Financial Governance and Trading Transparency Regulation: A Test Case for the Effectiveness of Post Crisis Administrative Governance' in D Busch and G Ferrarini (eds), Regulation of EU Financial Markets: MiFID II (Oxford University Press, 2017) 315
  • 'International Financial Governance, the EU, and Brexit: the "agencification" of EU financial governance and the implications' (2016) 17 European Business Organization Law Review 451
  • 'The 2013 Capital Requirements Directive IV and Capital Requirements Regulation: Implications and Institutional Effects' Zeitschrift fur Offentliches Recht (Austrian Journal of Public and International Law) (2016) 385
  • (2016) European Company and Financial Law Review 13(2) 376
  • (2016) 17 German Law Journal 75,  Brexit Supplement
  • 'Capital Markets Union: Ever Closer Union for the EU Financial System?' (2016) 3 European Law Review 307
  • 'Conduct Rules and Investor Protection: The Evolution of the EU’s Approach' in M Casper, L Klöhn, W-H Roth and C Schmies, (RWS, 2016) 397
  • ‘Banking Union and the Implications for Financial Market Governance in the EU: Convergence or Divergence?’ in D Busch and G Ferrarini (eds), (OUP, 2015) 524
  • ‘Financial Market Governance and Consumer Protection in the EU’ in E Faia, A Hackenthal, M Haliassos, and K Langenbucher (eds), (CUP, 2015) 221
  • ‘Regulating the Retail Markets’ in N Moloney, E Ferran, and J Payne (eds), (OUP, 2015) 736
  • ‘Financial Market Regulation’ in A Arnull and D Chalmers (eds), (OUP, 2015) 757
  • (2014) 51 Common Market Law Review 1609
  • International and Comparative Legal Quartery, 62 (4) (2013), pp.955-965
  • 'The European Securities and Markets Authority: A Perspective from One Year On' 68 Zeitschrift fur Offentliches Recht (Austrian Journal of Public and International Law) (2013) 59
  • 13 European Business Organization Law Review (2012) 557 (with G Ferrarini)
  • ‘Supervision in the Wake of the Financial Crisis: Achieving Effective ’Law in Action’ - A Challenge for the EU’ in E. Wymeersch, K. Hopt and G. Ferrarini, (OUP, 2012), 71
  • 6 Law and Financial Markets Review (2012) 327
  • ‘The Liability of Asset Managers: A Comment’ 7 Capital Markets Law Journal(2012)
  • 'The EU and Executive Pay: Managing Harmonization Risks’ in R Thomas and J Hill (eds), (Elgar, 2012), 466.
  • 13 European Business Organization Law Review (2012) 169.
  • ‘The December 2011 Veto and UK Financial Market Regulation’ 27 Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law (2012) 211
  • 60 (2) International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2011) 521
  • 12(2) European Business Organization Law Review (2011) 177
  • 12 (1) European Business Organization Law Review (2011) 41
  • 'Regulating the Retail Markets: Law, Policy, and the Financial Crisis' in O Cinneide and Letsas eds, Current Legal Problems (OUP, 2010, volume 63) 375
  • 47 (5) Common Market Law Review (2010) 1317
  • 'The Financial Crisis and EU Securities Law-Making : A Challenge Met?' in Grundmann et al. (eds) (Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2010) 2265
  • 'Financial Services and Markets' in Baldwin, Cave and Lodge (eds), The Oxford Handbook on Regulation (OUP, 2010) 437
  • ‘Regulating Retail Investment Products: The Crisis and the EU Challenge' 11 ERA Forum 329 (2010)
  • 10Journal of Corporate Law Studies (2010) 73 (with G Ferrarini and M C Ungureanu)
  • 'The Committee of European Securities Regulators and Level 3 of the Lamfalussy Process' in Tison, de Wulf, van der Elst, and Steennot (eds), (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 449
 
  • 'Regulation of the Markets and Intermediaries: Global Comparison and Contrast - What is Best Practice' 5 Macquarie Journal of Business Law (2008) 26
  • 'Reforming Investor Protection: Lessons from the European Union's Reform Agenda' 4 Macquarie Journal of Business Law (2007) 147
  • 32 European Law Review (2007) 627
  • 'EC Company Law' (Oxford University Press, 2007) in D Vaughan and A Robertson (eds), (Oxford University Press), para 20.1 – para 20.1215
  • 'Law Making Risks in EC Financial Market Regulation After the Financial Services Action Plan' in S Weatherill (ed), (Hart Publishing, 2007) 367
  • 7(4) European Business Organisation Law Review (2006) 647 (with Dr Kern Alexander, Professor Eilís Ferran, and Professor Howell Jackson); also published in the Harvard Law School, Olin Center Faculty Discussion Paper Series, No 1/2007
  • 55 (4) International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2006) pp982-992
  • 'Effective Policy Design for the Retail Investment Services Market: Challenges and Choices Post FSAP' in G Ferrarini and E Wymeersch (eds), (Oxford University Press, 2006) 381
  • 6(1) Journal of Corporate Law Studies (2006) 1
  • 21 Oxford Review of Economic Policy (2005) 304 (with Professor Guido Ferrarini); also published in the European Corporate Governance Institute Working Paper Series, No. 32/2005
  • 6(3) European Business Organisations Law Review (2005) 341
  • 53 (4) International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2004) pp999-1012
  • ' 4 (2) Journal of Corporate Law Studies (2004) 243 (with Professor Guido Ferrarini and Cristina Vespro)
  •  5 (2) European Business Organisations Law Review (2004) 223 (with Professor Anita Anand)
  • 4(1) Journal of Corporate Law Studies (2004) 1
  • 'Executive Remuneration in Europe: Convergence, Divergence and Reform' (with Professor Guido Ferrarini) in G Ferrarini, K Hopt, J Winter, and E Wymeersch (eds), Reforming Company and Takeover Law in Europe (Oxford University Press, 2004) 267
  • 40 Common Market Law Review (2003) 809
  • 'Investor Protection and the Treaty: an Uneasy Relationship' in G Ferrarini, K Hopt, and E Wymeersch (eds), Capital Markets in the Age of the Euro. Cross-border Transactions, Listed Companies and Regulation (Kluwer Law International, 2002) 17-61
  • 'The Regulation of Investment Services in the Single Market: The Emergence of a New Regulatory Landscape' 3 European Business Organisations Law Review (2002) 293