A crescendo built in the financial services industry late last year, as the effective date approached for sweeping new regulations. MiFID II, the European Union's version of Dodd-Frank, has capital markets professionals and their internal compliance colleagues scrambling to position themselves on the right side of this far-reaching and comprehensive regulation.

Why should a U.S.-based corporate finance officer or risk manager care about a massive new regulatory framework across the Atlantic? The reason is simple: At the heart of the regulation is a mandate for investment firms to adopt “best execution” practices. Investment firms are broadly defined as any legal entity whose regular occupation or business is the provision of one or more investment services to third parties and/or the performance of one or more investment activities on a professional basis.

Corporate treasurers who interact with European financial markets and securities may be directly impacted by the new regulations. Others may be indirectly affected. In the financial markets, fiduciary responsibility is fundamental, so the pursuit of best execution is logical. The pursuit of shareholder value in the corporate world is not dissimilar from fiduciary responsibility. Therefore, it's not a stretch to imagine how the concept of best execution might apply to corporate treasurers and risk managers as well.