Germany's Ferber given key MiFID role

The European Parliament has confirmed that German MEP Markus Ferber has been appointed as the rapporteur for the forthcoming review of MiFID.
By None

The European Parliament (EP) has confirmed that German MEP Markus Ferber has been appointed as the rapporteur for the forthcoming review of MiFID.

Ferber, a former engineer who first joined the European Parliament in June 1994, will have responsibility for writing a report based on the final MiFID II proposals made by the European Commission (EC), on behalf of the EP's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON). The report will form the basis for other ECON members to put forward amendments to the EC's proposals.

Ferber will also be required to agree compromises between conflicting amendments that may be necessary before a final ECON vote on the proposals.

Any amends passed by the committee must then be voted on by all MEPs in a plenary session in the EP before a common text is agreed with the Council of the European Union.

The appointment has rung alarm bells for some market participants, with one source commenting that Ferber has “no empathy or sympathy for the financial services industry”.

Speaking in a debate last year on the new European framework for macro-prudential oversight of the financial system, Ferber, criticised regulation that is “about protecting stock exchange centres and banking structures and no longer about protecting citizens”.

Ferber and ECON will have to reach a consensus on a number of contentious issues that have been fiercely debated since the EC released initial proposals in a consultation document that ran from December 2010 to February 2011.

This includes categorising high-frequency trading firms and placing tighter obligations on their trading activity, the regulation of broker crossing networks, whether banks will be required to alter how they match trades internally, and the creation of a either a mandated or commercially-led consolidated source of post-trade data. There is also debate on how much power should be given to the European Securities and Markets Authority, the pan-European securities regulators, such as whether it should have power to set tick sizes and monitor the pre-trade transparency waivers used by dark pools.

The EC is expected to make its final proposals on MiFID II during July 2011, with the new rules coming into force by 2013.

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