On 30 June 2023, the European Parliament and the Council issued a press release stating that they had reached provisional agreement on changes to the EU’s trading rules.
The provisional agreement relates to the European Commission’s legislative proposal for a review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) and Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) which was published in November 2021. See our earlier blog here.
The press release notes that the provisional agreement:
- Establishes EU-level ‘consolidated tapes’ or centralised data feeds for different kinds of assets, bringing together market data provided by platforms on which financial instruments are traded in the EU.
- Imposes a general ban on ‘payment for order flow’ (PFOF). The compromise introduces a possibility to Member States where the practice of PFOF already exists to allow investment firms under its jurisdiction to be exempt from the ban provided that PFOF is only provided to clients in that Member State. However, this practice must be phased out by 30 June 2026.
- Reached an agreement on amendments proposed by the European Parliament on commodity derivatives.
Once the text of the provisional agreement has been consolidated, it will need to be formally adopted by both the Council and the European Parliament before it can be published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
