The European regulatory view is often 'outcomes based' rather than the American 'rules based'. What I mean is that in the European approach, you might follow the rules, but fail in the outcome or 'the spirit' of the law. In that case, you have still broken the law. If you allow a gross generalisation, European regulators point to perverse outcomes in the US where morality is subverted by the law as a reason why this approach is better. There is however a much higher compliance cost in the EU than in the US due to this approach.