This article proposes that product intervention constitutes a form of residual lawmaking by ESMA that allows it to tackle aspects of investor protection not addressed by EU incomplete financial laws. Whilst product intervention may bring about certain advantages and may contribute to mitigating regulatory arbitrage problems, it constitutes a highly intrusive regulatory mechanism that raises important questions concerning: (a) ESMA’s rationale and motivations for its use; (b) its compliance with the EU constitutional framework; and (c) its adequacy for the regulation of complex financial products. This article addresses these questions through an analysis of the rationale and consequences of ESMA’s product intervention measures on binary options and contracts for differences of May 2018–July 2019, and of recent reforms of ESMA’s powers. It offers three main contributions to the existing literature. First, it contributes to the literature on administrative discretion and agencies’ rulemaking through an analysis of the political economy of ESMA’s deployment of product intervention powers and, also, of what this reveals about the relationships between ESMA and the EU Institutions, on the one side, and ESMA and National Competent Authorities, on the other. Second, it contributes to the literature on the constitutionality of EU agencies through an examination of the compliance of ESMA’s product intervention measures with EU constitutional law and requirements. Third, it examines whether product intervention constitutes an adequate mechanism to address problems pertaining to investor protection in complex financial products markets and, in doing so, it contributes to the scholarly discussion on complex financial products’ regulation.

本文提出，产品干预构成了 ESMA 的一种剩余立法形式，使其能够解决欧盟不完整金融法未涉及的投资者保护问题。虽然产品干预可能带来某些优势并可能有助于缓解监管套利问题，但它构成了一种高度侵入性的监管机制，引发了以下重要问题： (a) ESMA 使用它的理由和动机；(b) 遵守欧盟宪法框架；(c) 其对复杂金融产品的监管的充分性。本文通过分析 ESMA 对 2018 年 5 月至 2019 年 7 月的二元期权和差价合约的产品干预措施的基本原理和后果以及 ESMA 权力的近期改革来解决这些问题。它为现有文献提供了三个主要贡献。首先，它通过分析 ESMA 部署产品干预权力的政治经济学，以及这揭示了 ESMA 与欧盟机构之间的关系，一方面为行政自由裁量权和机构规则制定的文献做出了贡献，以及 ESMA 和国家主管当局，另一方面。其次，它通过检查 ESMA 的产品干预措施是否符合欧盟宪法法律和要求，为关于欧盟机构合宪性的文献做出了贡献。第三，它考察了产品干预是否构成了解决复杂金融产品市场中投资者保护相关问题的适当机制，并在此过程中，