This book is part of a series looking at specific aspects of European Union law and concentrates on the law that impinges upon financial transactions. To this end it examines three areas in some detail.

The first two chapters examine the development of the freedom of capital movements since the Treaty of Rome. Unlike the other freedoms (of services, establishment etc.), the free movement of capital was only expressed in Arts 67–73 of the Treaty in aspirational terms and the European Court declined to give these Articles direct effect. These chapters look at how the court distinguished capital movements from movements of goods or provision of services and their related financial settlement, and how such distinctions have lost their significance as Directives and Treaty amendments have belatedly established this freedom on a par with the others.

The next three chapters look at the control of the financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, investment houses etc.) that conduct financial transactions and how the basic freedoms from discrimination by Member States against the institutions of other Member States have been extended by the concept of the “financial passport”. In theory these financial institutions can (or will shortly be able to) receive authorization from their “home” country and then be free to provide their services throughout the Union (in fact throughout the wider 17 country European Economic Area, a fact curiously overlooked in the book, presumably on the grounds that the EEA was not in force on 1 August 1993).

The final chapters look at the development of the ECU from a convenient unit of account towards a proposed single currency for at least part of the Union. As the book went to print after the currency turmoil that forced the widening of the ERM bands, the author has been able to add some commentary to his increasingly relevant consideration of how the Monetary Union Articles of the Treaty might operate if the original timetable for a single currency is delayed.

The author clearly has a great fund of knowledge about European Union law in general and about the technicalities of this often neglected part of the field. This book, at less than 200 pages, is a masterpiece of compression; but therein lies my chief complaint.

This is not an easy book to read. Occasionally the author does stand back from the detail to comment upon general trends (e.g., at p. 57 and in his all too brief conclusion) but this is not enough. An outline at the beginning of each chapter of where it is leading would make the technical detail much easier to understand. The author is also very reluctant to discuss the political and practical issues behind the regulations which might help comprehension of some of the compromises that have been produced; e.g., the very real problem of distant “home” regulation of financial services and potential regulatory “arbitrage” in the light of scandals such as BCCI.

Financial services account for 18% of the United Kingdom’s GDP and the area is increasingly subject to European wide regulation. Indeed the Treaty freedoms in this area are being bought at the price of this regulation. Against this background, this book deserves a wide readership. I only ask the series editor to allow any second edition to be a little longer and more discursive.