Securities Law - Theoretical Approaches

This course is intended to provide a strong foundation for the advanced study of securities regulation and capital markets in Canada and elsewhere. It will provide this foundation in a number of ways; first, by re-introducing students to the core concepts of securities law doctrine. Second, it will introduce students to a variety of intellectual perspectives on securities regulation so as to provide them with some analytical tools to evaluate and critique securities law and policy in Canada and around the world. Such perspectives include: why and how we regulate, ECMH (efficient capital market hypothesis), the “law and finance” approach to evaluating regulatory policy, the principles-based and proportionate-based movement in regulation, behavioural economics and the investment decision, risk-based approaches to regulation, and a comparative dimension to the study of contemporary securities regulation. This course will introduce a comparative dimension to the study of contemporary securities regulation, introducing the theories behind securities commission regulation, and beginning an assessment of the similarities and dissimilarities of capital markets policy in Canada as compared to other jurisdictions such as the U.S. Finally, it will look at how these theories are being incorporated into the new common securities regulator with voluntary participation from across Canada.