EUROPEAN UNION: Council adopts new rules amending MIFID, MIFIR and OTF.

Wednesday May 14 2014

The Council of the European Union have adopted new rules on the provisions of services for investments in financial instruments and on the operation of regulated financial markets.
The rules are aimed at promoting the integration, competitiveness, and efficiency of EU financial markets, amending and replacing the existing “MIFID” text that regulates markets in financial instruments.
They consist of the two new legislative instruments:

• A regulation known as “MIFIR”, improving transparency and competition of trading activities by limiting the use of waivers on disclosure requirements and by providing for non-discriminatory access to trading venues and central counterparties (CPPs) for all financial instruments, and requiring derivatives to be traded on organised venues.

• A directive known as “MIFID”, amending rules on the authorisation and organisational requirements for providers of investments of investment services and on investor protection. The directive also introduces a new type of trading venue, the organised trading facility (OTF).

The aim is to ensure that all organised trading is conducted on regulated trading venues: regulated markets, multilateral trading facilities and organised trading facilities.

Strengthened requirements are introduced in relation to organisation, transparency and market surveillance in all three types of venue. Transparency requirements are calibrated for different types of instrument, notably equity, bonds and derivatives, and for different types of trading, notably order book and quote-driven systems. High-frequency trading will be limited.

Click on the above link for further details.