Commentaries on MiFID II: Proposals that will Shift the Balance of Power

The European Commission’s Review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), commonly known as “MiFID II”, is one of the most significant regulatory initiatives undertaken by this Commission. Whoever you are, the implementation of these proposals will have a major impact on how you invest, trade, broke, or match buyers with sellers in the European marketplace.

While we believe that the MiFID Review was justified, as extensive regulations should be periodically reviewed to ascertain their effectiveness, we are not sure that the Commission has done the industry or Europe a service by making the Review more extensive than the original legislation.

As Europe adopts a rules-based philosophy, there is a deliberate shift toward a centralized and harmonized regulatory strategy. While this will harmonize rules and reduce regulatory arbitrage, it will also reduce the power of the national regulators and alter the balance of power.

Starting with a view from the top, this set of commentaries examines the implications of major market structure changes, should the proposals be adopted, including: governance, dark pools, liquidity, transparency, surveillance requirements and the derivatives markets.

These commentaries are authored by CEO Larry Tabb and TABB Group analysts Miranda Mizen, Kevin McPartland, Will Rhode and Cheyenne Morgan. They were originally published individually on TABB Forum, www.tabbforum.com.

The TABB Group Commentaries on MiFID II: Proposals that will Shift the Balance of Power examines the implications of the MiFID II proposals and the impact they will have across the market place if adopted as written.