17 October 2011

FN: Fears grow over regulatory crunch

Verena Ross, executive director at ESMA, which still has only 65 staff, warned an audience in Brussels that the speed at which the regulator was expected to meet its deadlines was limiting its ability to seek industry feedback. She said: “We are extremely committed to stakeholder consultation but we are concerned that tight legislative deadlines for ESMA’s work on technical standards and advice will restrict our ability to consult as extensively as we would ideally like”.

The issue is coming to a head as key legislative deadlines converge, and as European politicians struggle to meet commitments made in the wake of the financial crisis to introduce reforms by the end of 2012. John Serocold, senior director for market practice and regulatory policy at the International Capital Market Association, said: “ESMA is facing a huge challenge, and it is up to the industry to make the European Commission and Parliament aware of this and provide it with enough resources – and time – to complete its tasks”.

Mark Hoban, the financial secretary to the Treasury, said last week that “the coming months are critical to the credibility” of ESMA and the other European financial regulators. ESMA has a hefty workload. It must submit its final technical advice to the European Commission on the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive by next month, and is also working on regulatory technical standards for credit rating agencies for the end of the year.

Next year it will be working on the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), the market abuse Directive and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). It is also setting out new guidelines for UCITS exchange-traded funds, structured UCITS and automated trading strategies. According to sources, ESMA is under pressure to accelerate work on the EMIR technical standards, even though the text is still being negotiated by European policymakers.

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