Insurance: Infringement procedures for financial services failures against Belgium, Spain and UK

United Kingdom


Belgium is being taken to the European Court of Justice for failure to fully transpose the provisions of the Third Non-Life Insurance Directive on the co-ordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to direct insurance other than life insurance and failure to amend the Third Non-Life Insurance Directive into its national law. This is because insurance against accidents at work is not included in the scope of the Belgian legislation, whereas the Commission believes that such risks are covered by the Directive and therefore should be covered by national legislation in relation to insurance by private insurance companies.

Spain is also understood to be facing Commission proceedings in the European Court for failure to notify national implementing measures transposing the detailed measures of the Directive on the annual accounts and consolidated accounts of insurance undertakings.

The UK is also involved in infringement proceedings for failure to notify national implementing measures in Gibraltar to give effect to five financial services directives which were supposed to come into effect by 1992.