The European Crowdfunding Regulation – Towards Harmonization of (Equity- and Lending-Based) Crowdfunding in Europe?

On 8 July 2020, the Council published the last version of the European crowdfunding regulation (‘CFR’), as well as a related directive to amend MiFID II. Although both the regulation and related directive now need to be adopted by the European parliament before it can be published in the Offical Journal and enter into force, it is expected that this version will be unanimously adopted. Given that no substantial changes are to be expected, it makes it worthwhile to explore the CFR and the impact it is likely going to have already in this stage. The CFR seeks to facilitate the scaling up of crowdfunding services across the internal market to increase access to finance for entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs in general. Till now, crowdfunding services have not been subject to EU action. Crowdfunding service providers (‘CSP’) were therefore subject to the different national frameworks implementing existing EU law that hindered the emergence of a European market for crowdfunding. The EU regime seeks to create a level playing field by introducing a harmonized EU legal framework for these service providers. Correspondingly, the CFR introduces a European passport for CSPs. This contribution seeks to assess whether and to what extent the CFR will lead to harmonization of (equity- and lending-based) crowdfunding in Europe. To that end, this contribution evaluates several relevant aspects of the CFR, including its scope, ‘platform’, sales and marketing regulation that target CSPs.