Regulation and Supervision of Bank Senior Management in Light of Prudential Corporate Governance

Book excerpt: Ongoing conduct issues in the banking sector have sparked global discussions on the effectiveness of the corporate governance of these institutions. This dissertation commences by exploring the internationally evolving regulatory landscape of prudential corporate governance and the role of bank senior management within these frameworks using a law and economics perspective. Two model jurisdictions, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, are identified as pioneers with their emerging approaches to tackle the persisting challenges. Against this backdrop, the study turns to Switzerland. It fills the gap of a comprehensive supervisory law analysis of bank senior management. For this purpose, the fragmented provisions are distilled from their institutional embedding and structured along the supervisory law life cycle of authorisation, ongoing supervision and enforcement. Along each phase, the respective novel approaches from the model jurisdictions are presented. Through these analyses, the dissertation identifies gaps and inefficiencies in the Swiss supervisory law framework. These findings are synthesised in order to gain a holistic view of the current setup. Concluding, future pathways for Switzerland are presented, also inspired by international developments, to propose a more structured, robust and efficient framework for the regulatory oversight of the senior management of Swiss banks.