On 17 November 2017, the Dutch Minister of Finance published a first draft of the Regulation competence employees investment firms (Regeling vakbekwaamheid medewerkers beleggingsondernemingen Wft, the Regulation) for consultation. The Regulation forms part of the legislative package implementing the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (recast) (2014/65/EU) (MiFID II).
The Regulation contains further rules on the professional competence of employees of an investment firm. This concerns employees responsible for informing clients about financial instruments (or structured deposits) or the investment services or ancillary services provided by the investment firm, as well as employees providing investment advice. The aforementioned rules are based on ESMA’s guidelines for the assessment of knowledge and competence. In addition, the Regulation:
- changes the existing exemption to the licence obligation that is available for parties from Australia, the United States of America or Switzerland to provide investment services or deal on own account in the Netherlands. This exemption will only be available for parties from these countries insofar they provide investment services to professional investors or eligible counterparties or deal on own account;
- introduces an exemption for parties dealing on own account that are established outside of the EU, provided that transactions in financial instruments are carried out with or through parties that are authorised in the Netherlands to provide investment services or deal on own account; and
- includes rules on the cooperation between the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Autoriteit Financiële Markten) and ESMA.
Although it was recently confirmed by the Dutch Minister of Finance that the national regime will be maintained under MiFID II, it turned out that it was not possible to include the required changes to the national regime in the Regulation. The necessary changes to the national regime will most likely be published for consultation in Q1 2018.
View the Regulation (Dutch only), 17 November 2017.
