The 1997 Guide to Germany: Market laws

Introduction

Few domestic financial markets in the world show such rapid and far-reaching changes in their legal framework as the German capital markets currently do. On the one hand, the European liberalization and harmonization process with regard to banking and financial services, particularly in the area of regulatory law, required and continues to require the implementation of various EC directives into German national law. On the other hand, the German government, realising the increasing competition between financial centres around the world, attempts to promote Germany, and especially Frankfurt, as its financial centre by abolishing unnecessary statutory and administrative restrictions and by a perceptible orientation towards international capital markets standards.