Rashko Stoyanov*
The global financial crisis of 2007 – 2008 clearly demonstrated the necessity of a regulatory framework for crisis management in the financial sector. For this reason, Directive 2014/59/EU and Regulation No 806/2014 were adopted in the European Union. Both legislative acts provide for swift decision-making procedures for the adoption of resolution measures for failing credit institutions and investment firms (“institutions”).
A new Union agency was established with Regulation No 806/2014 – the Single Resolution Board (“SRB”). The SRB is empowered to take decisions on the adoption of resolution schemes in respect of institutions established in the Member States which participate in the Banking Union. In its position of a Union agency, however, the SRB cannot take these decisions on its own. In this vein, in compliance with the case law of the CJEU in the Meroni case, Regulation No 806/2014 provides for that the Commission and the Council exercise control over those aspects of the resolution schemes where the SRB has discretion and which are related to the EU resolution policy-making.
The SRB’s decisions on the adoption of resolution schemes are subject to judicial review by the CJEU. In this relation, the interested parties have the opportunity to either directly attack the SRB’s decisions before the CJEU under Article 263 TFEU, or indirectly rise the question as to the validity of these decisions before the national courts of the Member States under Article 267 TFEU. Both procedural means, however, include admissibility check before the CJEU hears the case on the merits.
* PhD student at the Institute for Legal Studies at BAS and expert at the Financial Supervision Commission (“FSC”). The opinion expressed in the article is purely personal and does not bind the FSC.