Lovgivning af finansiel crowdfunding i medfør af den nye EU-forordning

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the applicable legislation concerning crowdfunding, focusing on the part of crowdfunding defined as financial crowdfunding, and the effect of the recent EU-regulation concerning European crowdfunding service providers, on this part of the financial crowdfunding sector. Financial crowdfunding is an alternative form of financing, which makes it easier to obtain access to risk capital, particularly for small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s). Crowdfunding is a form of finance, that makes it possible for companies to receive contributions from many individuals, through an open request made through an online-based platform. It is therefore considered that financial crowdfunding has the potential to be an aid to fill the gap in the access to finance for start-up companies in the European countries to help them expand. For this to work, it is necessary to have a regulation of the sector that ensures sufficient security for the investors and transparency in information, since an expansion of the crowdfunding market will attract a larger number of private investors. Denmark doesn’t have a specific regulation on financial crowdfunding, and the regulation therefor is based on the existing laws, which have partly implemented different EU-directives and other EU- regulations, which means that the regulation was really fragmented. This was also the pattern when comparing with other member states. The recent EU-regulation which was adopted in 2020. The main focus points of this regulation are harmonization, transparency, increased protection of investors and supervision of the crowdfunding service providers. It contains stricter regulation and entails more requirements for both platforms and project owners compared to the national regulation, but the different actions in the regulation make for a higher level of investor protection. The thesis concludes that even though the new EU-regulation improves the access to risk capital and a more harmonized regulation for financial capital, the regulation still leaves quite a gap for interpretation to be made by the competent authorities in the respective member states, which is at the risk of resulting in different interpretations of the proportional level of supervision and threaten the protection of investor, if some member states doesn’t do a sufficient level of supervision. Furthermore, the thesis comments on the fact that a prohibition in one of the provisions in the Danish company law still prevents SME’s from the possibility to use financial crowdfunding and thereby offer its shares to the public.

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A master thesis from Aalborg University

Lovgivning af finansiel crowdfunding i medfør af den nye EU-forordning

[Legislation of financial crowdfunding pursuant to the new EU-regulation]