EUROPEAN UNION: ESMA Highlights Preparations for MIFID II and Brexit as Key Issues at Econ Hearing

Friday October 20 2017

Steven Maijoor, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), has delivered the following statement to the Economic & Monetary Affair Committee (ECON) at the European Parliament as part of the annual hearing of the chairs of the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs).

In his statement Mr. Maijoor focused on ESMA’s work in preparation for the implementation of MiFID II. In the past 12 months ESMA issued a large number of guidelines and Q&As – often in response to demands from market participants and National Competent Authorities (NCAs) – to ensure coherent and consistent application of the rules coming into force.

Moreover, he mentions that ESMA has published specific Opinions on commodity position limits and pre-trade transparency waivers and that they set up complex IT systems for trade reporting to facilitate the technical delivery of the legal requirements.

On Brexit, ESMA have published one general Opinion in May and three sector-specific ones in July for investment firms, secondary markets and asset management, and tackled key aspects of outsourcing and delegation to third countries. ESMA also launched the Supervisory Cooperation Network, offering a forum for NCAs to discuss individual relocation cases on an anonymous basis.

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