22 November 2007

3L3 Committees consult on medium term work programme

The 3 Level 3 Committees publish their joint consultation paper on their medium term work programme setting out the work plan for the period 2008 to 2010 inclusive. Committees identified three categories of co-operation and convergence, namely for the 3L3 co-operation between national authorities, the convergence of regulatory and supervisory practices in key areas, and common 3L3 tools and working procedures.

Furthermore, Committees identified six key areas within the three year term:

• Home-Host and Delegation of tasks:

to explore further the issue of delegation of tasks between supervisors involved in the supervision of an institution or a group of institutions, or in investigating market behaviour.

• Competing products:

the differences in the regulatory treatment of products that are marketed to investors under a variety of different names and classified differently across the three sectors, but from an investor’s perspective achieve the same or similar characteristics.

• Credit rating agencies:

the role of rating agencies in the markets as well as the use of ratings in prudential regulations will be examined in light of the recent turmoil spurred by US sub prime mortgages.

• Internal governance:

to assess whether it is possible to develop a complete set of guidance ensuring greater consistency in the requirements stemming from different sectoral Directives (in particular the MiFID and the CRD).

• Conglomerates:

in particular to develop a common working definition of ‘own funds’.

• Valuation of financial instruments:

to assess the reliability of valuations of financial instruments, especially in cases in which a market value is not available or the market is not sufficiently liquid.

The Committees propose that going forward the work carried out under the medium term work plan will also be included in their Reports to the Financial Services Committee for the Council, to ECON for the Parliament and to the Commission.

Deadline for comments is 18 January 2008.

Press release

Work programme

© Graham Bishop