The European supervisory system for crowdfunding service providers: regulatory stratification and its critical implementation issues in national legal systems

The adoption of a unified European regulatory framework for crowdfunding seeks to address the challenges arising from the pre-existing regulatory fragmentation among Member States by establishing harmonized requirements concerning the provision of crowdfunding services, the organization, authorization, and supervision of service providers, as well as the operation of platforms, transparency obligations, and marketing communications, while ensuring consistent mechanisms for investor protection. This paper focuses on the European supervisory architecture applicable to crowdfunding service providers, with particular attention to its distinctive features vis-à-vis the role assigned to national competent authorities, in contrast with the initially envisaged framework under which ESMA was relegated to a largely marginal role. The principal specificity of the system, however, lies in the interaction and partial overlap between European norms and national legal frameworks governing the sector, notwithstanding that the European crowdfunding regulation constitutes a fully binding and directly applicable instrument in each Member State pursuant to art. 288 TFEU. Considering these features, the study aims to evaluate the extent of discretion afforded to national authorities, through an examination of the implementation process in Italy, which serves as an illustrative case of regulatory expansion resulting from the coexistence of multiple national competent authorities.