Europe Delays MiFID II Standards

European regulators have delayed submission of draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) for the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), cutting the amount of time firms will have to prepare for the controversial rules.

The draft RTS was set to be submitted to the European Commission this July, but the Commission and European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA), have agreed on a joint legal review which will delay the submission until September.

The delay, however, will mean added pressure for fund managers as it will mean less time for them to assess the proposals ahead of implementation.

Fund managers have demanded greater clarity on the rules for unbundling dealer commissions set out in MiFID II and how the rules will affect their business models.

The delay could bring further confusion to national regulatory bodies, that have all interpreted the rules to unbundling in different ways.

“It will definitely squeeze the industry’s implementation,” says Michael McKee, partner at law firm DLA Piper. “It is EMIR all over again where the stated implementation date was more of a fiction than reality because so much new infrastructure was not built out until long after implementation date.”