Futures of Europe: The City of London’s Commodity Exchanges, the European Economic Community, and the Global Regulation of Futures Trading (1960s–1980s)
本文探讨了1970年代以来欧洲期货交易缺乏统一监管的历史原因，认为伦敦金融城的商品交易所与欧共体委员会的互动重塑了欧洲监管模式，导致全球期货市场监管碎片化。
Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. commodity futures exchanges have increasingly been the focus of tight government regulation, which resulted in strong control by a specific agency: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In Europe, the regulation of futures diverged from the U.S. model. No regulation at the communitarian level was implemented; at the national level, the United Kingdom emerged as a model of self-regulation of commodity markets. This article explores the historical causes behind this lack of regulation in Europe, placing it in the context of global commodity trading and arguing that the European regulation of futures trading was reshaped by a dialogue established between the European Commission and big players of commodity futures trading in the City of London. Since the mid-1960s, the City of London has become a pivotal global market venue for commodity futures, which has increasingly attracted players from abroad, thanks to its financial integrity and self-regulatory model. Both established London merchants and emerging players in the global trade of financial products cooperated to stave off any attempt at regulating the London futures exchanges. The inference here is that those attempts were instrumental in setting the conditions leading to the regulatory fragmentation that still characterizes futures trading in the global market.