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To enable a common definition of retail and professional investors, CESR has agreed on a revised categorisation of investors. In addition to these regimes for investor protection, CESR adopted a common regime for market counterparties willing to waive from any rules of conduct for investor protection.
The “counterparty regime” is intended to address market-integrity concerns. This regime is available for licensed financial institutions (excluding collective portfolio managers and pension funds) under a specific choice to enter into a “counterparty relationship”. Members of CESR, having defined the appropriate quantitative thresholds, may extend this regime to companies.
These standards are based on the work prepared by the Expert Group chaired by Jacob Kaptein, Commissioner at the Dutch Authority for Financial Markets, and several sets of in depth consultations and close discussions with all market participants and interested parties across Europe.
Mr Arthur Docters van Leeuwen said : “By agreeing on a set of standards for investor protection, CESR is harmonising the rules of conduct applicable to retail and professional business in Europe. Investment firms and consumers of financial services should be able to provide services or invest all across Europe with only one set of protective rules. This is a major step forward for the Single Market for Financial Services.”
A European Regime of Investor Protection. The Professional and the Counterparty Regimes