Edward F. Greene is a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP focusing on corporate law matters. This post is based on a Cleary Gottlieb Alert Memo, and relates to a European Commission consultation paper, available here.
On December 8, 2010, the European Commission published a public consultation (the “Consultation”) [1] on the review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (“MiFID”). [2] The Consultation follows technical advice published in July 2010 and October 2010 [3] by the Committee of European Securities Regulators (“CESR”) relating to a number of potential MiFID reforms.
MiFID came into force in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) in November 2007 and sought to establish a single market for investment services and activities, harmonize conduct of business rules and provide to authorized firms a right to “passport” a branch or services, cross border, into other EEA Member States. MiFID also sets out parallel regimes for regulated markets, multilateral trading facilities (“MTF”), and “systematic internalizers.” [4]
The Consultation will be open until February 2, 2011. The Commission expects to issue formal legislative proposals in Spring 2011, but the Consultation already indicates the direction these proposals are likely to take. The Consultation proposes numerous reforms that would significantly change the operation of the EU securities and derivatives markets, including a new regime for access by third-country firms to EU markets, increased regulation of derivatives and regulation of currently exempt organized trading venues such as broker crossing systems.
This memorandum summarizes key aspects of the Consultation.
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