The specific aims of the seminar

This Seminar will aim to provide participants with information and insights into recent developments in financial regulation both in the European Union and internationally. The seminar format will provide an opportunity for participants to engage in discussion with the panellists about current issues in financial regulation, financial innovation as well as addressing the issues arising from these matters during times of crisis.

Seminar Content

The Seminar is introducing participants to financial innovation and is particularly focusing on two main disruptors of common finance, namely Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and cryptocurrencies. In both instances, financial regulation will serve as an instrument of discussion to critically assess whether more regulation equals to more protection for investors and users in financial markets or it undermines markets’ auto-regeneration processes. After the time of the Glorious Revolution in Britain, and the birth of Wall Street, financial innovations were deeply connected to the figure of speculators. Sometimes defined as smart individuals, opportunists and schemers, whose main job is to second-guess the opinions of other investors, try to take advantage of market information and fluctuations. Today, the speculator is defined as a short seller, and mainly bets against overvalued companies. From the Great Depression in 1929 to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the 2010 Debt Crisis in Europe, and the unfolding Covid-19 crisis, speculation and short selling gained momentum. Common wisdom would like to connect the birth of modern financial markets or international finance to liberalisation policies, the Bretton-Woods system and its collapse, the petrodollar system, and the diversification of financial risk by investment banks through cross-border transactions. This is only one way through which financial risk is privatised, and finance is globalised, but still does not explain how financial markets have been shaped in their modern form. By contrast, the iconic and symbolic figure of the speculator does provide an account for this remarkable formation, and at the same time it opens up the discussion on whether the law itself must eventually admit to its limits when it comes to regulating subjective and immaterial desires that are sometimes based on irrational investment decisions and pure sentiment.

Date:  2nd March 2022 |

Time: 17:00-20:00 Cyprus time (i.e. 15:00-18:00 UK time)

Venue: UCLan Cyprus campus and Online (MS Teams)

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