Int'l Financial and Monetary Law

This course explores the legal developments of the global monetary architecture and looks into the political and economic rationales underpinning international monetary law and its practices. The aim is to help students acquire the analytical tools needed to understand and critically reflect on the significant changes of the multilateral system, notably in the aftermath of the 2008 and the COVID-19 crises. The focus is on how monetary power relations are legally and politically re-configured over time and how this process is currently reshaping the global governance of money. The course covers (1) the legal foundations of the international monetary system and the international money (i.e., global currencies, the legal design of the eurocurrencies, and the challenges posed by cryptocurrencies); (2) the roles and evolving responsibilities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the main political and economic challenges to the development of the Fund's mandates; and (3) the legal forms of monetary cooperation at bilateral and regional levels (e.g., currency swaps between central banks; the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization-CMIM; the European Stability Mechanism-ESM).

The notion of cryptocurrencies confronts one of the oldest economics' concepts with the newest technology developed and used in the digital economy. This contribution to the Festschrift in honnor of Herbert Kronke analyses the legal nature of cryptocurrencies from a monetary law point of view and seeks whether cryptocurrencies can be considered as transnational currencies, i.e. stateless currency without territory.

1-Les prêts libellés en devises ont connu une forte envolée dès le début de la crise financière 1. Le risque lié à l'opération de change découlant de ces prêts a donné lieu à un important contentieux sur tout le territoire français que ni la Recomman-dation sur la commercialisation auprès des particuliers de prêts comportant un risque de change de l'ACPR 2 , ni la loi du 26 juillet 2013 sur la séparation et régulation des activités bancaires, introduisant pourtant un régime particulier des prêts en devises, n'ont pu tarir. Avant d'aborder le régime de ces prêts, avant l'entrée en vigueur de la dite loi et après celle-ci, il convient de s'entendre sur les termes du problème.

In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, emerging powers engaged in political and legal strategies to challenge the actual framework for global moneta- ry governance. This article examines two categories of monetary strategies designed as “voice” and “exit” plans (Hirschman 1970). In the case of the former, they aimed at gaining more participation inside the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In the latter case, strategies were built as legal al- ternatives to manage future liquidity crises outside the current framework. Using this theoretical classification, this paper identifies institutional respon- ses formulated by the G20 emerging powers in Asia and Latin America after 2008 crisis. The specific approach proposed by this article is to analyze how the legal framework for the management of international money influences their strategies’ designs and outcomes. Up to the present, it seems voice strategies are promoting only incremental modifications in institutions. Exit strategies, however, have the potential to be more successful. These strate- gies have been built as a network of bilateral swap contracts between central banks. Asian powers are more engaged in this type of legal strategy. La- tin American countries tend to be recipients of these plans. Exit strategies, however, are moving multilateral cooperation away from the IMF, reinfor- cing institutional fragmentation and uncertainty on how the next liquidity crises would be managed.

Central banks are not traditionally thought of as being socially accountable. In fact, the main innovation of central banks in the 20th century was to make them largely independent from political influence. Thus, the prevailing (economic) analyses of central bank accountability have examined the formal relationships of accountability to political bodies such as the legislature and the executive. However, this article argues that trends in monetary policy-making beginning in the 1990s inadvertently led to the potential for greater social accountability of central banks. Driven by a shifting economic consensus, central banks moved from an approach of secretive currency management to transparent communication with the market. This transformation was prompted by new beliefs about the efficiency of monetary policy. This article argues that the current 'hard law' framework for central bank accountability does not reveal all of the social mechanisms in place. In fact, 'soft law' instruments are causing more and faster institutional changes in the legal framework for the central bank accountability. The role of law is changing accordingly: central banks have their actions controlled in an ex postmodel of supervision rather than an ex ante form. This study explores the institutional development of accountability mechanisms in two central banks in advanced economies (the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank) and in a monetary authority in an emerging economic power (the Brazilian Central Bank). All the three central banks had the same institutional development, despite the significant differences in terms of political, social and economic contexts in which they operate.

Поскольку вопрос о таможенных процедурах в значительной степени связан с областью регулирования цен, необходимо уделить внимание регулированию цен в соответствии с правовыми нормами ЕС, которые в рамках регулирования единого рынка характеризуются значительной активностью. Согласно законодательству ЕС, а также документам судебной практики Суда Европейских Сообществ (в настоящее время Суд Европейского Союза), одной из основных целей ЕС является устранение всех препятствий в области свободного перемещения товаров, в том числе таможенных пошлин. В работе рассматриваются как правовые нормы ЕС в области регулирования цен в первичном праве и его взаимосвязями с вторичным  правом (особенно в директивах ЕС), так и их толкованием Судом ЕС. В области таможенных мер государств-членов имеет решающее значение положение статьи 30 ДФЕС, которая между государствами-членами запрещает все таможенные пошлины на импорт и экспорт или равнозначные им сборы. Цель данной работы заключается в том, чтобы установить, является ли каждая мера в области регулирования цен сама по себе ограничением торговли в рамках ЕС, и при необходимости определить, при каких условиях и с учетом каких документов судебной практики Европейского Союза, запрещены меры в области регулирования цен, принятые государствами-членами.

Various challenges have to date marred the effective and consistent enforcement of the insider trading prohibition in Zimbabwe. As a result, the regulation of insider trading has remained flawed and problematic in Zimbabwe since the early 1980s to date. For instance, the Zimbabwean anti-insider trading regulatory framework has so far failed to curb insider trading activities owing to several statutory flaws that are imbedded in the Securities Act 17 of 2004 [Chapter 24:25] as amended (Securities Act), such as poor insider trading penalties, inadequate and flawed insider trading provisions and insufficient definitions of key terms for insider trading offences and related aspects. These and other flaws have negatively affected market efficiency, market integrity and public investor confidence in the Zimbabwean financial markets. Consequently, the article exposes the statutory flaws and challenges that are affecting the regulation and combating of insider trading in the Zimbabwean financial markets. Thereafter, possible measures that could be adopted by the relevant authorities to enhance the regulation and enforcement of the Zimbabwean anti-insider trading prohibition are provided.

A crise da Covid-19 reforçou e consolidou um modelo de cooperação monetária global que visa sustentar o funcionamento do mercado financeiro internacional. No centro do sistema monetário, o desenho jurídico para a cooperação tem se alterado substancialmente: da centralidade de ações coletivas coordenadas por organizações multilaterais (como o Fundo Monetário Internacional, o FMI), para mecanismos contratuais mais flexíveis, formalizados por bancos centrais e sua rede de swaps cambiais. A gestão dos impactos monetários da crise da Covid-19 revela um novo momento Bretton Woods, que recorre a outros termos políticos e jurídicos para estruturar as relações internacionais. O argumento deste artigo é o de que o direito tem papel explicativo e constitutivo dessa mudança. O dólar americano, como moeda internacional, é estruturado por um tipo específico de contrato, o eurodólar. Em tempos de crise, esse contrato demanda um prestamista internacional de última instância, capaz de conceder, de forma ilimitada, suporte aos usos globais da moeda. Somente uma instituição financeira, organizada como banco central, tem a capacidade jurídica e econômica de desempenhar esse papel - e não um fundo multilateral. A rede hierárquica de swaps cambiais, com o banco central americano (Federal Reserve, o Fed) em seu topo, foi o arranjo jurídico estruturado para sustentar o funcionamento do mercado financeiro global e de sua moeda por excelência, o eurodólar.

The Covid-19 crisis reinforced and consolidated a template for global monetary cooperation, aiming to keep the international financial markets functioning. At the core of the monetary system, the legal design for cooperation has changed substantially: from the central role of multilateral organizations responsible for organizing collective actions (such as the International Monetary Fund - IMF), to more flexible contractual arrangements, formalized by a network of Central Bank swaps. The management of the Covid-19 monetary impacts reveals a new Bretton Woods moment, organized in novel political and legal terms. This article argues that Law has an explanatory and constitutive role in this substantial development. The US dollar, as a global currency, is structured by a specific type of contract, the eurodollar. In times of crisis, this contract requires an international lender of last resort that provides unlimited financial support to the currency’s global uses. Only a financial institution organized as a central bank has the legal and economic capacity to perform this role - not a multilateral fund. The hierarchical network of Central Bank swaps, with the American Central Bank (the Federal Reserve - Fed) at the top, was the legal arrangement structured to support the functioning of the global financial market and its currency par excellence, the eurodollar.

As of today, financial markets’ inefficiencies generate important costs unevenly spread across different stakeholders. Meanwhile retail investors’ trust in the financial markets became pivotal in making the latter liquid and stable. Therefore, the absence of an equitable transparency framework internationally enforceable upon financial markets (with at its core the ‘financial consumers’ protection’) calls for en-hanced coordination between domestic and international legal regimes. Based on the subsidiarity principle, international multilateral organisations aim to design checks and balances to be introduced both at a domestic and international/regional level to enhance the necessary accountability and trust in the global financial markets from all stakeholders. These efforts lead to shape a safer, more sustainable and legally enforceable global financial regime. MiFID II brings these efforts into a legally enforceable regime applicable to the EU. As part of a process leading to a global financial regime, MiFID II like regimes already affect the financial regulations of third countries, leading to positive regulatory competition based upon principles progressively crystallized in broadly accepted standards. However, this positive trend was recently challenged at international fora (such as the WTO). Countries aiming to exploit the way of regulatory free-riding, rather than the one of compliance to the standards, alleged their illegal effects on certain home states’ financial services firms engaged in cross-border activities. Nevertheless the present ‘global financial inter-connectivity’ will result in more regulatory homogenization to the profit of the global ‘financial consumers’, following the developments of retail consumers’ protection laws, which have already been implemented in most of the OECD countries in a recent plethora of reforms.

Who will be the lender of last resort in the next financial crisis? Seven years and nine G20 summits on from the 2008 crisis, we still do not know the answer to this critical question. In the current institutional context, the best hope for more effective international cooperation on this question lies in reforming the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s SDR (Special Drawing Rights) Department. Yet political challenges have impeded such reforms.

Therefore, a second-best option is to replicate the institutional design of the SDR Department in an alternative institution. The main political goal is to establish a truly multilateral hub for facilitating currency swaps. The Group of 20 (G20) has the capability and legitimacy to drive forward this reform agenda, but of late attention has waned. The G20 must urgently refocus its energy on monetary and financial policy coordination, before the next crisis hits.

This policy brief sets out clear recommendations for what reforms are needed to create a monetary system to respond to a global liquidity crisis, and explains why the G20 is the key actor to deliver this progress. During the current Turkish and the next Chinese presidencies of the G20, the group has a critical opportunity to promote a stronger international monetary system.

Abstract

The article examines different concepts of international financial law, it role in maintaining order in the world financial system. The author examines the connection between international financial law and other regulators in the
international financial system: private international law, national law. The international financial system as a complex phenomenon comprises various groups of interconnected social relations related to cross-border capital flow.
The international financial relations involve direct interrelations between public legal bodies, while the private bodies are involved only in terms of national jurisdictions where domestic law or international private law (if the foreign element appears in these relations) are enforced. The influence of international financial law on private bodies is indirect and is enforced only
through the influence on domestic law of States. Today, the concept of public finance is added up with the criterion of the public interest that dictates the necessity of State legal public regulation in such spheres as banking, securities market and insurance. The key qualification criterion of international financial relations is the maintenance of public economic order aiming at secure functioning of national financial systems and international financial system as a whole through international cooperation.

Palabras clave: international financial law, finance, financial system, international law, international finance.

Příspěvek obsahuje rozbor právní úpravy daňových skladů, problematiky vlastnických práv (zejména, avšak nikoliv jen, na příkladu skladování minerálních olejů), jakož i otázek naskladnění, vyskladnění, přiznání a odvodů nepřímých daní (jak DPH tak spotřební daně) v tomto režimu, obchodování se zbožím v režimu daňového skladu apod. Jako jeden z příkladů je podrobně rozvedeno i srovnání s režimem celního skladu.

Daňový sklad představuje ze soukromoprávního hlediska nepřímou úschovu. Naskladněním zboží do daňového skladu dochází k přechodu vlastnického práva na rovozovatele.Z hlediska daňového je významná otázka postoupení práv na vyskladnění.Spotřební daň se odvádí teprve tehdy, kdy je výrobek uveden do volného daňového oběhu. Pohyb vybraných výrobků v daňových skladech a mezi daňovými sklady navzájem není spotřební daní zatížen. Je však monitorován celní správou až do okamžiku, kdy jsou výrobky uvedeny do tzv. volného daňového oběhu v tuzemsku.Režim podmíněného osvobození od daně je velmi podobný režimu podmíněného osvobození od cla. Tyto dva režimy se navzájem vylučují – na výrobky v režimu podmíněného osvobození od cla se nevztahují ustanovení o podmíněném osvobození od daně. Nelze všakzaměňovat pojmy „vyskladnění“, „uvedení do volného daňového oběhu“ a důsledné rozlišení je často klíčové klíčové. Přitom legální definice existuje jen ve vztahu k „uvedení zboží do volného daňového oběhu“.

V případě DPH je nutno pojmy „dodání zboží“ (jako převod práva nakládat se zbožím jako vlastník“) a „poskytnutí služby“vykládat též v souvislosti se směrnicí 2006/112/ES jako autonomní pojem evropského práva.

Zásadní zlom představovala novelizace zákona o DPH provedená zákonem č. 47/2011 Sb., když do 1. dubna 2011 nebyly obchody v rámci daňového skladu zatíženy spotřební daní. Přitom mezeru v  úpravě DPH lze nejlépe prezentovat na srovnání s daňových skladů a celních skladů. Přitom do r. 2011 zákon o DPH neupravoval, že by při uvolnění zboží do volného daňového oběhu u daňových skladů docházelo ke zdanitelnému plnění, do jehož základu je nutné započítat spotřební daň. Zákon o DPH tak do roku 2011 obsahoval mezeru, kterou nebylo možné nahradit smluvním ujednáním stran.