On 2 March 2020, we reported that HM Treasury had published a letter it had sent to Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union concerning the UK’s preparations for assessments of financial services equivalence. In that letter the UK Government confirmed that it was committed to meeting the end of June deadline for concluding its equivalence assessments.

On 16 March 2020, the European Commission published the response given by Mr Dombrovkis.

The response states:

“On equivalence, as per the Political Declaration agreed in October 2019, we should both start assessing equivalence as soon as possible, endeavouring to conclude these assessments before the end of June 2020. As agreed in the Political Declaration, this means proceeding with the assessments, not taking equivalence decisions by that date.”

The response goes on to state:

“We are mapping the equivalence areas internally, and my teams will reach out to yours soon to collect evidence about the UK frameworks applying after the transition period, in line with our existing practice on equivalence assessments. I note that equivalence assessment will have to be forward looking, taking into account of overall developments, including any divergences of UK rules from EU rules.”