[oracuk]

The subject of start-ups and regulators has come up a few times recently and there tends to be a view espoused that regulators are intent on legislating away innovation.

My experience of working alongside or for regulators is that they overwhelmingly do not want to write new law unless they absolutely have to. Law is hard to write, hard to schedule and politically difficult to agree.

Generally regulators prefer industry associations or similar creating 'best practices' that the regulators can then rely on for evidence of recklessness or negligence compared to peers in the industry.

This can lead to established players in a market controlling the regulatory framework for innovation but this is solved through either new players engaging with the industry associations or a truly valuable innovative approach forcing legislators hands.

By not engaging with regulators and industry associations to address best practices the only route left is to be valuable and disruptive enough to require new law which is resisted by all those involved until the last moment possible.

It is always worth remembering that no matter how good your relationship with the regulator is their goals are not yours, they would like you as an industry to be successful but they exist to protect society as a whole and when placed in a position between your success and the perception of harm to society they will enforce regulations strongly.