On 21 April 2020, there was published on legislation.gov.uk a draft of the Financial Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
The draft Regulations make certain amendments to secondary legislation and revokes parts of retained EU law to address deficiencies arising from Brexit. It also makes miscellaneous amendments to financial services statutory instruments made under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to correct and clarify previous financial services exit instruments.
In particular the draft Regulations make certain amendments to the UK proposed equivalence regime including that:
- Regulation 11 further clarifies the Equivalence Determinations for Financial Services and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (Equivalence Regulations) to ensure that HM Treasury, when assessing equivalence, may consider whether the EEA state is on the UK’s list of high-risk countries for anti-money laundering, and also whether sanctions, embargos or similar measures are in place; and
- Regulation 11 also clarifies the power to make equivalence determinations, such that HM Treasury may impose limitations on the applicability of the equivalence determination it makes
