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Ten years have passed after the last financial and economic crisis. As such, it is a good time to assess and to be reminded of the lessons that were learned and, more importantly, the lessons that were not learned, when it comes to the post-crisis reform of EU’s financial regulatory system. The current article aims at identifying the extent to which the Solvency II directive which codifies and harmonizes regulation regarding EU’s largest institutional investors, i.e. insurance undertakings, imitates its source of inspiration, Basel II, in order to introduce a critical way of thinking about the identified level of imitation. The main argument of this contribution is that since Solvency II is supposed to be revised this year, the EU legislator should embrace this opportunity to abstain from treating insurance undertakings as banks regulated under Basel II since Basel II did not prevent the financial and economic crisis of 2008 and arguably even added fuel to the fire. Moreover, the current article presents several other arguments as to why the regulatory model of Basel II is by no means a danger-free inspirational source for regulating insurance undertakings.

The fifth chapter of the second part summarizes all the findings of the methodological trashing accompanied by genealogy with which this monograph is concerned. As it turns out, the ideology behind Solvency II, a piece of post-crisis legislation is less stringent than its pre-crisis predecessor, Solvency I, whilst being more stringent that its source of inspiration, Basel II, which played a negative role in the last financial and economic crisis (the reason for the post-crisis financial legal reform).

The second chapter of the first part of the monograph concerns the research approach of the monograph: Critical Legal Studies. It posits Critical Legal Studies as a jurisprudential school of thought within broad jurisprudence whilst dealing with its past and present state. When it comes to the present state of CLS, the need is emphasized to modernize (resurrect) CLS and suggestions are made as to how to make Critical Legal Studies more suitable for the examination of a piece of legislation with a continental legal system background.

Due to the criticism of Critical Legal Studies coming down to nothing more than nihilism, the third chapter of the first part of this monograph identifies law reform design as the most appropriate research method for answering research questions from a Critical Legal Studies’ perspective. Namely, law reform design provides for the opportunity to formulate constructive solutions instead of engaging in critique for the sake of critique. Also, this chapter suggest to make a distinction between a micro and macro design of law reform.

The third chapter of the second part of this monograph addresses the ideology of the form in which the rules of Solvency II are cast by methodologically trashing them in comparison to Solvency I and Basel II. It makes a distinction between the external form and the internal form of the of the instruments whilst making clear that this distinction should not be interpreted too strictly as it has been made in the name of orderliness.

In this monograph, the attempt has been made to design micro law reform suggestion which are better aligned with the objectives of Solvency II; the business model characteristics of insurance undertakings specifically; and the market in which insurance undertakings operate in general. For this reason, before the methodological trashing accompanied by gynealogy with the aim to conduct a micro law reform design in concern to the ideology of Solvency II can be embarked upon, the second chapter of the second part of this monograph deals with 6 preliminary topics: 1. What solvency exactly is 2. Why insurance undertakings are controlled by law 3. What insurance undertakings are 4. What kind of business insurance undertaking engage in 5. What kind of business model characteristics insurance undertakings have (that differentiate them from other financial undertakings) 6. What kind of market insurance undertakings operate in

The fourth chapter of the second part of this monograph methodologically trashes the ideology of the substance of Solvency II whilst comparing it to Solvency I and Basel II. First, the objectives of all three instruments are compared as methodological trashing involves an investigation into potential contradictions between what an instrument sets out to do and what an instrument actually does.

This book analyzes the impact of Solvency II. In recent years, EU legislators have sought to introduce fundamental reforms. Whether these reforms were indeed fundamental is critically investigated with regard to a post-crisis piece of financial legislation affecting the EU’s largest institutional investors: Solvency II. Namely, the last financial and economic crisis, the worst financial catastrophe of the last decade, revealed that financial law in particular was not sufficiently mature to maintain the existence of a robust and trust-worthy financial system that could protect society from economic decline. The work also makes concrete recommendations on achieving a more sustainable future. As such, it offers a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in the financial system, the EU political economy, insurance, sustainability, and Critical Legal Studies