IOSCO and the Spreading of a US-Like Regulatory Philosophy around the World

Abstract

The objective of this article is to describe the International Organization of Securities Commissions - IOSCO, its internal procedures, normative product and implementation process, and to test the role played by the US Securities and Exchange Commission - SEC since the Organization's birth. The pervasiveness of the US Securities Laws will be tested both on the most important document IOSCO has ever adopted, the Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation, representing the regulatory philosophy of the Organization; and, as a more detailed case study, on the documents concerning the regulation of Credit Rating Agencies, a very hot topics for international finance. Moreover, it will be analyzed the position of the US in the crossborder enforcement cooperation process established under the auspices of IOSCO in the last twenty years and how this has recently changed. The results seem to suggest that IOSCO's has been deeply affected by the US Securities Laws even if, more recently, the emerging of new important markets is progressively turning the Organization into a multipolar forum where the US is no longer the only "regulatory" superpower.