As governments around the world withdraw from welfare provision and promote long-term savings by households through the financial markets, the protection of retail investors has become critically important. Taking as a case study the wide-ranging EC investor-protection regime which now governs EC retail markets after an intense reform period, this critical, contextual and comparative examination of the nature of investor protection explores why the retail investor should be protected, whether retail investor engagement with the markets should be encouraged and how investor protection laws should be designed, particularly in light of the financial crisis. The book considers the implications of the EC's investor protection rules 'on the books' but also considers investor protection law and policy 'in action', drawing on experience from the UK retail market and in particular the Financial Services Authority's extensive retail market activities, including the recent Retail Distribution Review and the Treating Customers Fairly strategy.

随着世界各国政府退出福利制度，并通过金融市场促进家庭的长期储蓄，保护散户投资者已变得至关重要。以广泛的欧共体投资者保护制度为例，该制度在经历了一个激烈的改革时期后，现在管理着欧共体零售市场，这一对投资者保护性质的批判性、背景性和比较性研究探讨了为什么应该保护零售投资者，是否应鼓励散户投资者参与市场，以及应如何设计投资者保护法，尤其是在金融危机的背景下。本书考虑了欧共体投资者保护规则的“账面”含义，但也考虑了投资者保护法律和政策的“实际”，借鉴了英国零售市场的经验，特别是金融服务管理局广泛的零售市场活动，包括最近的零售分销回顾和公平对待顾客的策略。