The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has published a final report on the code of conduct fundamentals for credit rating agencies (CRAs) (the Final Report).
The Final Report, which includes significant revisions and updates to the current IOSCO CRA Code, provides a summary of the changes made and a redline comparison of the code as consulted on and as adopted.
The revisions to the Final Report are designed to:
Article 25(10) of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (recast) (MiFID II) mandates the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to develop guidelines for the assessment of:
ESMA has now published a consultation paper which sets out draft guidelines on related issues that are important for the correct classification of debt instruments (bonds, securitised debt and money market instruments) as either “complex” or “non-complex”, specifically, the concept of embedded derivative for debt instruments.
HM Treasury has published 7 designation orders which bring the following payment systems into the scope of the Payment Systems Regulator:
The designation orders will come into force on 1 April 2015.
The FCA has published its Business Plan for 2015/16, setting out the key areas of work it intends to undertake to pursue its statutory objectives.
Amongst other things, the FCA’s key priorities are:
The Asia Pacific Regional Committee (APRC) of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published (on 23 March 2015) a framework strategy (Roadmap) to enhance collaboration and cooperation amongst regulators in the Asia Pacific region. The Roadmap provides APRC’s 29 members with an outline of areas for contributions by regulators in support of the region’s
The South African Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi called a Medico-Legal Summit on 9 and 10 March 2015 which we participated in as part of the Ministerial task team appointed to look into the rise of medical negligence claims against the healthcare sector.
The objective of the Summit, which was attended by interested stakeholders
The Council of the EU (the Council) has published the texts of the Regulation on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions (MIF Regulation) and the Regulation on European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIF Regulation).
Both texts have been published in advance of the Council’s formal adoption.
In July 2014, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a consultation paper on guidelines on periodic information to be submitted to it by credit rating agencies.
Consequently, ESMA has now published its Final Report, which considers the responses received and sets out final guidelines. The guidelines will become effective two months after their translation into all the EU official languages and subsequent publication on ESMA’s website.
The PRA has published Policy Statement 3/15: Strengthening individual accountability in banking and insurance — responses to CP14/14 and CP26/14 (PS3/15).
In PS3/15, the PRA provides feedback to its July 2014 joint consultation paper with the FCA on the new senior managers’ and certification regimes and its November 2014 consultation paper on the new senior insurance managers regime, and issues the first set of final PRA rules to implement the regimes in the UK.
The FCA and HM Treasury have jointly published Consultation Paper 15/11: Implementation of the Transparency Directive Amending Directive (2013/50/EU) and other Disclosure Rule and Transparency Rule Changes (CP15/11).
In CP15/11 HM Treasury and the FCA set out proposals to implement the Transparency Directive Amending Directive 2013/50/EU (TDAD), which amends the Transparency Directive (TD), the Transparency Directive Implementing Directive (TDID) and the Prospectus Directive (PD). The responsibility for implementing the TDAD is shared between HM Treasury, which has the power to make changes to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), and the FCA, under its Disclosure Rules and Transparency Rules (DTRs).
In CP15/11 the implementation of the remaining provisions of the TDAD are addressed (the FCA has already implemented the new requirement to report on payments to governments and removed the TD requirement to publish interim management statements). In CP15/11 HM Treasury sets out in broad terms the proposed amendments to FSMA. It also covers the FCA implementation through the DTRs and sets out the proposed rule changes required as a result of the TDAD modifications including: