In a victory for the United Kingdom, a top court official this week agreed that an EU regulation banning short-selling was based on faulty legal grounds.
In March 2012, the European Union adopted a regulation on short-selling, giving the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) the power to intervene in member states’ financial markets to regulate or prohibit the practice. It was one of several measures taken in response to the financial collapse. U.K. lawmakers had unsuccessfully tried to block the legislation, and turned to the Court of Justice to annul the regulation two months after it was passed.
