LLM International Financial Law

Fees for entry in 2027 have not yet been set. For reference, the fees for the academic year beginning September 2026 were as follows:

• LLM (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £16,800
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £31,000

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We know that student finance can be complicated. The links below provide further information to help guide you.

• Learn more about - student finance options for UK students .
• Learn more about - fees and finance for international students .
• Graduates of The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University can receive a 10% discount on their master's degree tuition fees as part of our Manchester Alumni Loyalty Discount scheme.

With the explosion of the global financial crisis in the period between September 2007 (the credit crunch in the UK and the fall of Northern Rock) and September 2008 (the spectacular collapse of Lehman Brothers), financial regulation has now become one of the hottest topics to be researched and discussed in many academic circles. Notwithstanding the preeminent legal nature of this module, the multidisciplinary character of this topic is evident and a comprehensive understanding of regulatory issues in the area of financial law needs to take under consideration questions of economics, politics, finance and anthropology inter alia. Some of the literature discussed in the lectures (and to be read before each seminar) reflects therefore this approach.

Financial regulation is also an incredibly broad topic and no individual module could offer a comprehensive coverage of the whole subject. Beyond providing a background to the structures and theories of financial regulation, this course is focused on the in depth discussion of selected case studies and regulatory issues. While a comparative overview of different regulatory systems, chiefly UK, EU and USA, is provided, this module is not designed to provide a comprehensive examination of financial regulation in either of these jurisdictions. Emphasis on the other hand will be laid on the international nature of many regulatory approaches and techniques, which reflect the relevance of transnational regulatory networks in this area of law.

The principal aim of this module is to familiarise students with theoretical and practical approaches to the regulation of financial services in the UK and in the international context. Students will be enabled to critically and independently reflect on a number of issues among which: a) recognise the main issues and challenges arising in the regulation of financial services; b) relate these issues to the broader questions of business regulation and to practical problems in the financial services industry.

Upon successful completion of the module, students will be capable of conducting independent research in a number of areas of financial regulation. In particular, they will familiarise with the relevant literature and with the chief regulatory and institutional frameworks that characterise the financial  services industry. This will enable students to a) analyse detailed regulatory problems in financial services; b) discuss critically possible solutions to major financial difficulties in the area.
 

The module is delivered through 26 hours of lectures and 4 hours of seminars. Most lectures are conducted in an interactive way and students are highly encouraged to engage with the relevant discussions. Seminar attendance is an essential preparation for the final examination. Students are required to prepare the seminar questions by reading the relevant materials in advance of the seminar session.

A detailed reading list will be provided with each lecture handout. This will consist chiefly of journal articles, reports and cases. There is no textbook for this module. Some preliminary reading on financial markets and regulation can be done on some of the books in the library (for instance P.Wood "Law and Practice of International Finance" Sweet & Maxwell 2008), however these do not represent an essential or conclusive learning tool for this module.

What follows is a preliminary list of articles that will be used during the modules:

R. Weber "Mapping and Structuring International Financial Regulation: A Theoretical Approach", European Business Law Review 653 (2009) http://fspfinance.uzh. ch/papers/lawregfin/webermapping.pdfF.

Akinbami, (2011) "Financial services and consumer protection after the crisis" International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol.29 Iss 2 pp. 134 - 147;

L.E. Mitchell "Financialism. A (very) Brief History", 2010, available at http://ssrn.com.abstract=1655739

E. Avgouleas "The Global Financial Crisis and the Disclosure Paradigm in European Financial Regulation: The Case for Reform", 6 European Company and Financial Law Review 2009;

V. Bavoso (2016) " Financial Innovation, Derivatives and the UK and UK Interest Rate Swap Scandals: Drawing New Boundaries for the Regulation of Financial Innovation", Vol. 7 Global Policy, forthcoming, available on ssrn.com;

E. Avgouleas "The Global Financial Crisis, Behavioural Finance and Financial Regulation: In Search of a New Orthodoxy" 23 Journal of Corporate Law Studies, Vol.1 part 9, 2009;

S.L. Schwarcz "Controlling Financial Chaos: The Power and Limits of Law", Wisconsin Law Review Issue 3, 2012;

F. Allen and E Carletti " The roles of banks in financial systems", March 2008, http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/08/0819.pdf

V.Bavoso “Debt Capital Markets: Law, Regulation and Policy”, OUP 2024.

Information
Students wanting to write a dissertation or research paper in one of the topics related to this course will be provided with a list of possible titles. Alternatively, students can also present proposals for titles to be approved by the module's instructors.