The European Commission is considering tightening EU financial rules in the wake of the Wirecard scandal. The collapse of the German financial technology company with €1.9 billion missing from its books has raised serious questions over its supervision.
But
Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner for financial services,
said the Commission was also assessing whether there are lessons for
relevant pieces of EU financial legislation.
“We will assess how
to improve relevant EU rules so that that kind of cases can be detected
and addressed at early stages,” he told journalists. “This assessment is
still ongoing and will be concluded after summer — but we are open to
fix what needs to be fixed.”
He pointed in particular to the EU’s
Transparency Directive, Accounting Directive, Statutory Audit Regulation
and Market Abuse Regulation.
The EU is also weighing the
supervision of “third-party critical infrastructure providers” as part
of an action plan for fintech firms.
Dombrovskis said the main
problem in the Wirecard case was misleading information being provided
to investors in listed companies. Wirecard was listed on Germany’s DAX
index of blue-chip companies.
“We are ready to also look at the
EU-level regulatory response to this case but it is worth noting that
here we also face a clear breach of rules,” he added.
This requires an assessment of any failings of supervision, Dombrovskis said, which is currently being undertaken by the European Securities and Markets Authority.
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