The Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) published three consultation papers on its technical advice to the commission in its review of Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).
CESR has been working on functional assessment of the MiFID regime since 2008, when it provided its advice to the commission on the review of the MiFID provisions relating to commodity derivatives business. A public hearing on the MiFID revisions will be held May 17 and the deadline for comment on all consultations is May 31.
CESR intends to provide feedback statements for all three consultations and will provide its final advice to the European Commission by the end of July 2010. A brief overview of the three consultation papers follows.
In its three consultation papers, CESR addresses areas of the MiFID legal framework where it has identified a need for improvement, including quality, cost and consolidation of post-trade transparency data and delays in the publication of such data. Furthermore, with the global financial crisis in the background, regulators have seen a need to focus more on selling practices for certain financial instruments, in order to further improve the protection of investors, in particular retail investors.
“MiFID is one of the cornerstones of the regulation of securities markets in the EU,” said Eddy Wymeersch, chair of CESR and Chair of the Supervisory Board of the Belgian Commission Bancaire, Financiere et des Assurances (CBFA). “Ensuring that the regulatory framework keeps pace with the changing shape of financial markets is key, especially as the Directive itself was conceived with the strong intention of encouraging the modernization and progress of Europe’s securities markets, whilst also seeking to ensure that this progress affords the investor with the necessary protections to ensure a strong degree of market confidence.”