MiFID II

Recent Articles

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  14.10.2022

  ESMA Guidelines on suit­ab­il­ity up­dated to take in­to ac­count sus­tain­ab­il­ity factors, risks and pref­er­ences of the cli­ents

  Firms (that are inter alia investment firms and credit institutions) (i) providing investment advice or portfolio management or (ii) selling or advising clients in relation to structured deposits have to provide suitable personal recommendations to their clients, in particular to their retail clients, or they have to make suitable investment decisions on behalf of their clients. In order to match clients with suitable investments, Firms should establish policies and procedures to ensure that they consistently take into account: (i) all available information about the client necessary to assess...

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  18.03.2022

  The Whole­sale Mar­kets Re­view – no “big bang”

  Regulatory perimeter for trading venues. Although the Government recognises the need for greater clarity in this area, it is intended that the FCA will consult on new guidance in the first instance, rather than the Treasury bringing forward amendments to the definition of a “multilateral system”, the concept of which underpins the trading venue regulatory perimeter. Removal of some restrictions on MTF and OTF operators. The Government believes that it would be appropriate to remove the matched principal trading restrictions for investment firms operating a multilateral trading facility...

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  02.02.2021

  The new pruden­tial re­gime for in­vest­ment firms: key points from the first FCA Con­sulta­tion Pa­per

  Key points to note from the Consultation Paper What is covered in the Consultation Paper and what is missing? The Consultation Paper includes the first tranche of draft rules that will form part of a new single prudential sourcebook in the FCA Handbook for investment firms called “MIFIDPRU”. We expect that the process of simplifying and bringing the rules together in one place will be welcomed by many investment firms. The Consultation Paper covers some aspects of the application of the MIFIDPRU rules (i.e. which firms are subject to the rules and when), investment firm groups and prudential...

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  20.01.2021

  ESMA ob­serves ques­tion­able re­verse so­li­cit­a­tion prac­tices after Brexit

  The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has issued a statement to remind firms of the rules on reverse solicitation under MiFID II. It says, that since the end of the UK transition period on 31 December 2020, some firms appear to be trying to circumvent MiFID II requirements and questionable reverse solicitation practices have emerged. These practices include using general clauses in Terms of Business or online pop-up “I agree” boxes, whereby clients state that any transaction is executed on the exclusive initiative of the client. In ESMA’s view, these practices...

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  30.03.2020

  ESMA and FCA cla­ri­fy su­per­vis­ory ap­proach on SFTR back­load­ing re­quire­ments due to COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic

  The FCA also updated its webpage on the SFTR to confirm that it has also updated its approach to supervisory reporting to align with ESMA's revised approach. ESMA’s revised statement On 19 March 2020, ESMA published its statement on regulatory forbearance for the first phase of reporting obligations under SFTR which were due to become effective on 13 April 2020 for credit institutions and investment firms when acting as counterparties. This guidance was issued by ESMA as a result of ESMA being aware of the pressure that the financial industry is facing to comply with SFTR amid the COVID-19...

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  25.03.2020

  ESMA and FCA is­sue state­ments con­cern­ing reg­u­lat­ory for­bear­ance for re­port­ing ob­lig­a­tions un­der SFTR and Mi­FIR in light of COV­ID-19 out­break

  ESMA’s statement also applies to the related reporting obligations for certain securities financing transactions (“SFTs”) under the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (“MiFIR”). In response, the FCA has updated its webpage on SFTR and has stated that it will not prioritise the supervision of these reporting requirements until at least 13 July 2020. SFTR SFTR entered into force on 12 January 2016 and is an EU-wide regulation aiming to address a lack of transparency relating to SFTs. SFTR captures SFTs such as repurchase transactions, lending and borrowing...

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