ERDEM-NEWSLETTER-2018-metin

220 NEWSLETTER 2018 Regulatory Approaches to Crowdfunding in European Union * Att. Ozgur Kocabasoglu Introduction Crowdfunding has finally entered into Turkish legislation through Omnibus Law no. 7061 dated 5 December 2017, by way of amending certain provisions of Capital Market Law numbered 6362. Although the amendments cover the mainframe of crowdfunding in a very ba- sic form, detailed secondary legislations and policies are needed to implement crowdfunding as a successful system. In anticipation of the secondary legislation it would be beneficial to look at the regulatory approaches to crowdfunding within European Union (EU ) Member States and United Kingdom (UK). EU Level Legislative Framework Although the European Commission (through a communication 1 and two reports) and the European Parliament (through three resolu- tions) considers crowdfunding a way to broaden access to finance for innovative companies, start-ups and other unlisted firms, including small or medium size enterprises 2 , there is no specific EU legislation for crowdfunding. Member States implemented one of two main ap- proaches to address concerns around crowdfunding. Some Member States (Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium) adopted guidelines extending prior banking and financial regulations and, amongst others (Italy, France, Spain and UK) adopted specific regulations. However, * Article of March 2018 1 Unleashing the potential of Crowdfunding in the European Union, p. 2. http:// ec.europa.eu/internal_market/finances/docs/crowdfunding/140327-communica- tion_en.pdf (Access date: March 2018). 2 Action Plan on Building a Capital Markets Union, COM(2015)468/2, 30.09.2015.