Speculation is rife on the origins of the worldwide financial crisis of 2008, with a preponderance focusing on alleged shortcomings in corporate governance. This book offers a distinct yet complementary perspective: that the most useful path to follow, if we want to understand what happened and forestall its happening again, is through an analysis of contract relationships â specifically, banking contracts entered into in the financial services sector, considered under the rubric of contract law rather than company law. Because banking is the area of European contract law which is most thoroughly developed, banking contracts can be seen as paradigmatic of typical assumptions and shortcomings often examined in the more general debate on contract law. And indeed, the very thoroughness of European banking contract law makes it a promising ground on which to build effective preventive measures. In this book thirteen noted scholars, recognizing that modern contract law must take into account global markets and risks, consider banking contracts within networks and within mass transactions. Always attending to the long-term relationships that characterize financial services contracts, they focus on such cross-sector issues as the following: \n\nrule-setting and the question of who should best regulate and at which level; \nnetworks of contracts as the backbone of a market economy; \nthe complex interplay between market regulation and traditional contract law; \navoiding erroneous assumptions about the future development of prices; \nthe passing on of the risk via securitization; \nrating relationships affected by conflicts of interests; \nremuneration problems; \ncore duties of information and advice in an agency relationship in services; \nfiduciary duties of loyalty and care; \ntypes of clients and level of protection; \ndifferentiation in information available on various markets; and \nthe question of enforcement.
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