02 August 2006

CESR eleventh meeting of the Market Participants Consultative Panel

The Market Participants Consultative Panel held its eleventh meeting on 14 June 2006 in Paris. The discussion was facilitated by CESR-Chairman Arthur Docters van Leeuwen and included a policy discussion pertaining to the role of CESR in protecting individual retail investors and consistency across financial sectors.

In his opening remarks the Chairman updated the members of the Panel on the developments in the Transatlantic Dialogue with particular regard to the work programme with the SEC. With regard to the SEC, two issues were flagged: the self-contained discussion about IFRS and the proposal on deregistration.

On the postponement of the US GAAP/IFRS convergence timetable, a formal decision is expected by the EU Commission this summer. CESR will prepare a preliminary report for the EU Commission on the progress in the implementation of the IFRS before the end of 2006. A final report is envisaged for 2007.

On de-registration, it was noted that the SEC-proposal of December 2005 would - in CESR’s view - not enlighten the reporting burden for companies which want to de-register, as much as hoped for.

Furthermore, the Chairman of CESR informed members of the Panel about the implications of a possible (Transatlantic) consolidation of stock exchanges.

Finally, the Chairman underlined the major milestone achieved in the dossier of supervisory convergence and the future of supervision of EU financial markets by referring to the conclusions of the ECOFIN Council on these matters in early May.

Full report

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