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The current Commission has been very focussed on the banking and sovereign debt crisis and so most legislative proposals relating to financial regulation have been about financial stability and control. The next Commission will need to look to the creation of jobs and growth, and the impact of financial regulation on the end users of markets. So 2014 will be busy on the political front and on the legislative front until the elections, although EuropeanIssuers expects there to be an effective pause in the publication of new proposals until November. Chairman Didier Lombard summarised:
"Long-term financing and the market share: The debate has started, but there is a long way to go. Europe needs to prepare itself for a move from bank finance now to more market finance in the future. So the questions we need to ask ourselves are: what are the factors needed for market finance to succeed? What ecosystems and supporting structures do countries with strong market finance systems have in place that others may not? Which countries are the best at supporting companies seeking to access the capital markets and what can we learn from their experience?
Corporate governance: the debate is becoming better balanced between the needs of companies and investors, with discussion of stewardship as well as corporate codes. We have been working on the issue of shareholder identification and effective communication along the investment chain for many years and hope to see progress on these in 2014.
Purpose of the corporation: I attended a debate in Brussels, where the issue being discussed was whether company law and corporate governance force companies to follow the maxim of maximising shareholder value. The answer from the company law academics present was no. Despite this, some of the debate then centred around how to improve corporate governance. My own feeling is that we were discussing the wrong question. Instead of looking to company law and corporate governance, we should rather look at the incentives created by financial regulation–such as our comments later in this report on how market abuse regulations should not force companies to focus only on the short-term share price."