Acta Universitatis Danubius. Administratio, Vol 3, No 1 (2011)

Abstract

The current worldwide economic crisis brought back into discussion a topic long debated in the legal scholarship, pertaining both to administrative law, as well as to corporate and financial law, namely the optimal relationship between the self-regulation of the corporate and financial sector and its regulation and auditing by the institutions of the public administration. By their nature, rules pertaining to corporations, as well as banking and investment institutions are integrated into private law, since most of the relationships between their different agents (investors, clients, suppliers, employees) are mostly of a contractual nature. Therefore, in most developed countries, the corporate and financial sector seems almost detached from public law, due partly to its tendency of self-regulation. The self-regulation of the corporate and financial sector is a reflection of the contractual freedom according to which the contracting parties enjoy full freedom in determining the terms which govern their relationship and which affect only the parties to the contract.