Summer holiday at the European Commission
The rumour mill may be proven right yet again. There has been growing speculation that ESMA will be forced to delay the release of the draft technical standards until September. This now appears to be an extremely likely outcome as the chairman of ESMA, Steven Maijoor, wrote to the European Commission warning of a delay. He advises Jonathan Faull, Director General the Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union that early EC legal reviews “will possibly lead to the delayed submission of final draft technical standards to the end of September 2015 (instead of July 2015).” The official timeline on ESMA’s website still refers to June for the release, but we suspect it’s still a matter of time before it’s updated. January 2017 still remains the hard stop for implementation of Mifid II. Unfortunately, delaying the release means less time for companies to digest the essential details and properly prepare, but given the size and complexity of the directive it doesn’t come as a huge surprise.