The Finance Marked Fund har granted a scholarship to finance the postdok-project "Towards more stability, competiveness and predictebility in the financial sector"

The Finance Market Fund is intended to contribute to increasing public understanding concerning financial markets, with particular emphasis on the functioning of financial markets, and also ethical issues. In October 2015, the Norwegian Finance Market Fund, (the Finance Market Fund), granted a scholarship to finance a Post.doc.-project: «Towards more stability, competitiveness and predictability in the financial sector». The Finance Market Fund is intended to contribute to increasing public understanding concerning financial markets, with particular emphasis on the functioning of financial markets, and also ethical issues.

The leader of the project is Associate Professor Ronny Gjendemsjø. The Post.doc.-project will be carried out by Malgorzata Agnieszka Cyndecka, PhD. Cyndecka defended her PhD-thesis: «The Market Economy Investor Principle» at the Faculty of Law at UiB in January 2015. The PhD-thesis will be published by Wolters Kluwer in 2016.

While the Post.doc.-project is financed by Finansmarkedsfondet, the Faculty of Law will finance a PhD-project that will also deal with State aid law, and that will focus on state guaranties.

Both individual projects will contribute to developing the EU/EEA State aid law at the Faculty of Law and BECCLE, Bergen Centre For Competition Law and Economics.

A short description of the projects

In Autumn 2008, the financial crisis hit Europe. In order to prevent the systemic crisis, the EU/EEA Member States granted huge amounts of state aid to banks that were "too big to fail". This was approved by the European Commission and the EFTA Surveillance Authority that are responsible for State aid control in EU/EEA. While these institutions are still dealing with financial crisis aid cases on a daily basis, it is now time to ask more general questions. How can State aid rules contribute to rebuilding the financial sector for the future? How can they make it more robust? The goal of this project is to provide some answers in this regard, and thus contribute to an on-going discussion on the financial sector. The project will analyse how State aid rules should be applied in the financial sector to safeguard its efficiency, competitiveness and equal terms and conditions for all market operators. This analysis entails two individual research projects: a Post.doc.-project and a PhD project (financed by the Faculty). The Post.doc.-project will investigate the applicability and application of the Market Economy Investor Principle (MEIP) to state measures granted in the financial sector. Under the MEIP, the state intervenes in the market in the same way as a rational, profit-oriented market operator would in similar circumstances under normal market conditions. The financial crisis raised new questions concerning the MEIP and its role in the rebuilding of the financial sector. The PhD project seeks to clarify the legal implications of repayment of aid that was granted in the form of a state guarantee. Such measures create a special triangular relation between the state, the aid recipient and the financial institution. This poses certain civil law challenges. As the procedure of aid recovery is governed by national rules, one must examine and clarify the implications of enforcing the EU/EEA State aid law to the Norwegian legal system.