MEPs, Council to clash on dark pools

Rules surrounding dark pools will be a major point of contention in today’s first major MiFID II trialogue meeting.

Rules surrounding dark pools will be a major point of contention in today’s first major MiFID II trialogue meeting.

MEP Markus Ferber, lead rapporteur for MiFID II in the European Parliament, told theTRADEnews.com that he has concerns about shifting dark trading into new organised trading facilities (OTFs) to increase transparency, which is among the key proposals in the MiFID reform.

“Our main concern is that a lot of trades will leave regulated markets and MTFs so we end up with only a few huge OTFs, while the reference price market will lose its importance,” he explained.

“Then we must ask: do we really have a clear picture of the bids and offers in the price-building process and will the small investor achieve best execution if he doesn’t have access to an OTF?”

Today’s meeting is set to be the first productive session of the trialogue stage, where the Parliament and European Council come together to reconcile differences in their versions of the legislation, with in put from the European Commission.

An earlier meeting on 4 July was held to plan out how the two parties will discuss the text and produce a final version.

Meetings have already been scheduled for each month until the end of the year, as the Lithuanian presidency is hoping to have the text agreed by December.

Successful trialogue sessions will be vital to ensuring MiFID II can be agreed before European Parliament elections in May, which could alter the composition of the Parliament. To avoid this, an agreement must be hammered out by the time the last plenary session takes place in May.

Aside from concerns around dark pools, another area that could prove difficult to agree is a call for open access provisions for exchanges and clearing houses.

«