It is important to ensure that trading in financial instruments is carried out as far as possible on organised venues and that all such venues are appropriately regulated. The adoption of a regulation ensuring direct applicability is best suited to accomplish those regulatory goals and ensure uniform conditions by preventing diverging national requirements as a result of the transposition of a directive.
Provisions in respect of trade and regulatory transparency requirements need to take the form of directly applicable law applied to all investment firms that should follow uniform rules in all Union markets, in order to provide for a uniform application of a single regulatory framework, to strengthen confidence in the transparency of markets across the Union, to reduce regulatory complexity and investment firms’ compliance costs, especially for financial institutions operating on a cross-border basis, and to contribute to the elimination of distortions of competition. The directive needs to be recast in order to appropriately reflect developments in financial markets and to address weaknesses and close loopholes that were, inter alia, exposed in the financial market crisis. This directly applicable legal act aims at contributing in a determining manner to the smooth functioning of the internal market and should, consequently, be based on Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), as interpreted in accordance with the consistent case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.ĭirective 2004/39/EC established rules for making the trading in shares admitted to trading on a regulated market pre-trade and post-trade transparent and for reporting transactions in financial instruments admitted to trading on a regulated market to competent authorities. In order to remove the remaining obstacles to trade and significant distortions of competition resulting from divergences between national laws and to prevent any further likely obstacles to trade and significant distortions of competition from arising, it is therefore necessary to adopt a Regulation establishing uniform rules applicable in all Member States. The need to establish a single set of rules for all institutions in respect of certain requirements and to avoid potential regulatory arbitrage as well as to provide more legal certainty and less regulatory complexity for market participants warrants the use of a legal basis allowing for the creation of a Regulation. This Regulation should therefore be read together with the Directive. Together, both legal instruments should form the legal framework governing the requirements applicable to investment firms, regulated markets and data reporting services providers. The new legislation should as a consequence consist of two different legal instruments, a Directive and this Regulation. In the context of the future European supervision architecture, the European Council of 18 and 19 June 2009 stressed the need to establish a European single rule book applicable to all financial institutions in the internal market. The High-Level Group on Financial Supervision in the EU chaired by Jacques de Larosière invited the Union to develop a more harmonised set of financial regulations. It should complement requirements for the transparency of orders and transactions in respect of shares established in Directive 2004/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 4). The framework should establish comprehensive rules for a broad range of financial instruments. In order to strengthen the transparency and improve the functioning of the internal market for financial instruments, a new framework establishing uniform requirements for the transparency of transactions in markets for financial instruments should be put in place. Strengthening transparency is one of the shared principles to strengthen the financial system as confirmed by the G20 Leaders’ statement in London on 2 April 2009. The financial crisis has exposed weaknesses in the transparency of financial markets which can contribute to harmful socioeconomic effects.
Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee ( 2),Īcting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure ( 3), Having regard to the opinion of the European Central Bank ( 1), Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,Īfter transmission of the draft legislative act to the national parliaments, Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 114 thereof, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, On markets in financial instruments and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 REGULATION (EU) No 600/2014 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL