Yane Svetiev Wins the 2017 Legal Studies Award

WITH AN ARTICLE ON THE SUPERVISORY PRACTICES OF NATIONAL FINANCIAL AUTHORITIES IN THE EU. BUT THE SCHOLAR ALSO STUDIES THE ENFORCEMENT OF COMPETITION LAW, ESPECIALLY IN CHINA, BEYOND COURT DECISIONS

Assistant Professor Yane Svetiev is the recipient of Bocconi’s 2017 Legal Studies Award for Financial Supervision in the Interstices Between Public and Private Law (with Annetje Ottow), in European Review of Contract Law, 2014. The prize goes to the author of a law publication which is outstanding for its originality and innovativeness, methodological rigor, relevance for comparative law and impact on the scientific community.
 
Financial supervision
In order to investigate the supervisory practices of national financial authorities in the EU in the wake of the financial and debt crises, “we used some unconventional methodologies, at least for traditional legal research”, Bocconi’s Assistant Professor says. Svetiev and Ottow interviewed officials from authorities of three EU member states (the Netherlands, France and Germany) to understand their changing approach to the task of supervising the creation, development and distribution of financial products. Even if the potential risks of such products were disclosed to customers, officials were becoming aware of the limits of such an approach and so they were developing – sometimes informally – new modes of supervision. “Such practices can shape the meaning of the rules or lead to the creation of new rules, as happened at European level”. But they argue that the new EU rules formalized an already emergent supervisory practice.
 
“The article offers a rare study of the enforcement techniques of financial authorities in the European Union”, the motivation states, “and is innovative both in its methodology and findings. Particularly, it is innovative because it goes beyond the relevant legal texts to examine the techniques through which authorities interact with financial firms and investors in the exercise of their functions”.
 
A path through three continents
Macedonian-born and grown up in Australia, Svetiev obtained a doctoral degree in law and worked in the US – a true product of globalization. “This could be the reason why I have developed an interest in economic integration”, he says. “Having studied and taught both law and economics, I was especially interested in the areas of economic regulation and competition law. My research focuses on market regulation in the context of economic integration”. He believes that research that speaks to current problems has to start from the problem itself. “Limiting your attention to existing rules or even court decisions, you end up studying a small cross-section of the problems that are relevant to legal actors”.
 
After his undergraduate studies in Sydney Svetiev, who is currently Assistant Professor at Bocconi’s Department of Legal Studies, was a judicial associate at the High Court of Australia. This position exposed him to the most challenging legal problems faced in that jurisdiction. Combined with his legal practice, it made him aware of the limits of viewing law as a mere exercise of interpretation. Not surprisingly, his work comes to terms with the fact that implementing the law requires the design of institutions – including novel ones – that are able to fit the law to current problems in real time. Another question that reappears throughout his publications is the extent to which competition is an adequate disciplining force on market actors.
 
Competition in China
After the Legal Studies Award-winning article, Svetiev turned his attention to a newcomer grappling with the application of competition law: China. Some were worried that the Anti-Monopoly Law – enacted in 2007 – would eventually be used as a protectionist tool. Others pinpointed the lack of a dedicated authority as the main obstacle to the proper application of the law. Not being able to conduct interviews with officials, Svetiev and co-author Lei Wang turned to publicly available material that disclosed the debates among decision makers and economic players. “We found out that at all levels there was much greater openness than might be expected to understanding how the introduction of competition law could shape and restructure the Chinese economy”. They also observed that the authorities produced enforcement documents, which would constrain their discretionary powers. “It turns out that our conception of the rule of law may not be a precondition to an effective competition law. Through implementation you can develop procedural mechanisms that both enhance competition enforcement and strengthen the rule of law”.
 
Regulation by learning
Svetiev is currently working on a book on the use of experimentalist governance in market regulation in the EU. He examines the extent to which the regulatory authorities learn from and build on each others’ practices. “One of the interesting things that has happened in the EU over the last decade is the growing use of the mechanism of peer review to monitor the activities of national authorities and the Commission in different areas of market regulation”. He seeks to address a number of questions that arise about this novel institution: what is the purpose of this technique? What kind of effect does it have on the way in which authorities decide and regulate? Is it a way to impose a straightjacket or promote innovation in regulation?
 
Find out more
 
Financial Supervision in the Interstices Between Public and Private Law, Yane Svetiev, Annetje Ottow, European Review of Contract Law, 2014 
 
Competition Law Enforcement in China: Between Technocracy and Industrial Policy, Yane Svetiev, Lei Wang, Law and Contemporary Problems, 2016
 
The EU’s Private Law in the Regulated Sectors: Competitive Market Handmaiden or Institutional Platform?, Yane Svetiev, European Law Journal, 2016
 
Settling or Learning? Commitment Decisions as a Competition Enforcement Paradigm, Yane Svetiev, Yearbook of European Law, 2014

by Claudio Todesco