Securities Law (U.S. and International) Research Guide

This Research Guide covers only the major sources for researching international securities law. If you need more information for your international research question, please feel free to consult an international and comparative law librarian for further assistance. You may reach the International Reference Desk by phone, by email, or through Live Help online chat during Reference Desk hours.

1. Major Agreements

• International Organization of Securities Commissions' Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Consultation and Cooperation and the Exchange of Information (May 2002) ("MMOU"). Signatories to the MMOU (who are securities regulatory agencies from 27 countries) agree to provide information related to bank and brokerage records, records identifying the beneficial owners of non-natural persons, and other critical information; to permit use of that information in enforcement and regulatory matters; and to otherwise keep that information confidential. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has signed the MMOU.
• Convention on Insider Trading, opened for signature Apr. 20, 1989, entered into force Oct. 1, 1991, Council of Europe. The Convention "is intended to create mutual assistance by exchanges of information between Contracting Parties, to enable supervision of securities markets to be carried out effectively and to establish whether persons carrying out certain financial transactions on the stock markets are or are not insiders." (Quote from the introduction to the Explanatory Report.) The United States is not a signatory of the Convention on Insider Trading.
• Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect of Securities Held with an Intermediary ("Hague Securities Convention"), opened for signature Dec. 13, 2002 . The purpose of the Convention is to reduce uncertainty about the law applicable to cross-border securities transactions where securities are held by an intermediary. So far, the Convention has no signatories.

2. Sources of Additional Agreements

• SEC Office of International Affairs: Bilateral Information Sharing Arrangements
• Lexis
  • U.S. Treaties in Force 
    Text of the current volume of Treaties in Force plus direct links to full-text treaties on the LexisNexis services bearing a Bevans or UST citation.
• Westlaw
  • U.S. Treaties & Other International Agreements (1778 - )
    Provides full text of U.S. treaties and international agreements on all subjects.
  • International Economic Law Documents
    This database is a project of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Interest Group on International Economic Law and contains basic documents of international economic law as selected for the database by the editors.

Foreign Regulators

Countries other than the U.S. have their own agencies, similar to the SEC, that administer securities laws. Below are links to the web sites of selected foreign securities regulators:

• Australian Securities & Investments Commission
• Canadian Securities Administrators (links to provincial regulators)
• European Union:
  • European Securities and Markets Authority
  • Internal Market and Services Directorate General
• Germany: Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht
• Japan: Financial Services Agency
• Mexico: Comision Nacional Bancaria y de Valores
• United Kingdom: Financial Conduct Authority
• A list of additional foreign regulators, with links to their web sites, is available on the International Organization of Securities Commissions home page

Foreign Laws

• International Capital Markets and Securities Regulation (1982-) (K1331 .I55 1982, no longer updated in print). This multi-volume set provides analysis of securities laws from countries in Asia, Europe, and North America, as well as Israel and South Africa. It also provides selected primary materials in English from those countries and from selected South American countries.
• U.S. Securities Law for International Financial Transactions & Capital Markets discusses how U.S. law relates to cross-border financial transactions and capital markets. Provides a thorough discussion of the fundamentals of U.S. securities law, along with a comprehensive treatment of its international aspects.
• Foreign corporations laws (not necessarily securities laws, but sometimes including them) are available for many countries through Checkpoint (RIA) (International Tax Library > RIA Worldwide Tax Law > RIA Worldwide Tax Law Regions > [Region, e.g., Europe] > [Country, e.g. Germany] > Commercial Laws).