MiFID II, MAR and CSDR – Final Technical Standards published by ESMA

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its final technical standards (TS) on the 28th September 2015 with respect to three of the most important pieces of post-crisis financial regulation:

• The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II): the objective of this directive is to increase market transparency, efficiency and safety. Once implemented, the TS will bring the majority of non-equity products into a robust regulatory regime, and bring a significant part of OTC trading onto regulated platforms. The main points which are enhanced in this respect are fairer, safer and more efficient markets, greater transparency and stronger investor protection.
• The Market Abuse Regulation (MAR): the aim of such regulation is to increase market integrity and investor protection, by strengthening the existing market abuse framework through the extension of its scope to new markets and platforms. Insider dealing and market manipulation prohibitions are dealt with along with provisions to prevent and detect such activities.
• The Central Securities Depositaries Regulation (CSDR): the intention of such regulation is to harmonise the functioning of European central securities depositories by harmonising the authorisation and supervision of central securities depositories (CSDs) within the EU.

The TS published by ESMA explain how this legislation will apply to market participants, market infrastructures and national supervisors in practice, and how the TS will alter the functioning of European financial markets by increasing their transparency, safety and resilience as well as investor protection.

Next steps

The different sets of ESMA’s final draft TS have been sent to the European Commission for endorsement, with three months to approve them. Both the European Parliament and the Council have an objection period once endorsed by the Commission. The CSDR entered into force back in 2014, whilst MAR and MiFID II will enter into force in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Click here for the full announcement published by ESMA.

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