On 22 May 2014, ESMA published two consultation papers relating to the recently agreed revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and the new Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (together, known as "MiFID II"). The first is a consultation paper that relates to the technical advice requested from ESMA by the European Commission on 24 April 2014 and covers investor protection, transparency, data publication, trading venue requirements, commodity derivatives and portfolio compression. ESMA has stated that it will publish its technical advice as provided to the European Commission by the due date (expected to be in December 2014, depending on the timing of publication of MiFID II in the Official Journal of the European Union). The second paper is a discussion paper covering investor protection, transparency, data publication, trading venue requirements, commodity derivatives, organisational requirements for investment firms and trading venues, market data reporting and post-trading requirements (clearing). ESMA will use the responses to the discussion paper to develop a consultation paper on draft implementing technical standards and RTS, which consultation is expected to be published in late 2014/early 2015. Responses to both papers are due by 1 August 2014.
Both papers are available at: http://www.esma.europa.eu/news/ESMA-consults-MiFID-reforms?t=326&o=home.
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