On 29 September 2016, the German Federal Ministry of Finance started the consultation process on the Second Financial Markets Amendment Act by sending a consultation draft to the Federal States and Associations. The Second Financial Markets Amendment Act transposes the revised requirements of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), the accompanying Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR), the Regulation on Transparency of Securities Financing Transactions (SFTR) as well as the Regulation on indices used as benchmarks in financial instruments and financial contracts (Benchmark Regulation) into national law.

The implementation of the aforementioned EU rules requires various amendments to the German Securities Trading Act (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz – WpHG), the Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG) and the Stock Exchange Act (Börsengesetz – BörsG). Furthermore, changes will be made to the German Insurance Supervision Act (Versicherungsaufsichtsgesetz – VAG), the Capital Investment Code (Kapitalanlagegesetzbuch –KAGB). Numerous other legal provisions will have to be amended because the Ministry of Finance aims – on the occasion of enacting the Second Financial Markets Amendment Act – to rearrange the numbering of the provisions of the Securities Trading Act.

The First Financial Markets Amendment Act came into force on 1st July 2016 and transposed into German law the Market Abuse Regulation, the Directive on criminal sanctions for market abuse, the Central Securities Depositories Regulation and the Regulation on key information documents for packaged retail and insurance-based investment products. Originally MiFID II was to be transposed under the First Financial Markets Amendment Act but following its one-year postponement it was decided that a Second Amendment Act was needed.

The draft Second Financial Markets Amendment Act can be found here in German.