The timetable sets out three tranches of extensive regulatory changes to UK and EU law in 2023 and 2024.

By Rob Moulton, Becky Critchley, Denisa Odendaal, and Dianne Bell

The “Edinburgh Reforms”, a series of announcements made on 9 December 2022 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (see here), set out the UK government’s reforms to drive growth and competitiveness in the financial services sector. The Reforms build upon the reform agenda that the government is taking forward through the Financial Services and Markets (FSM) Bill and which implements the Future Regulatory Framework Review.

Equivalence decisions for EEA states, green finance and fintech initiatives are at the forefront of the UK government’s priorities.

By Rob Moulton, Anne Mainwaring, and Anna Lewis-Martinez

On 9 November 2020, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, delivered a statement setting out plans for the start of a new chapter for UK financial services to ensure that the UK remains “an open, attractive international financial centre” post-Brexit. These plans include the announcement of a set of equivalence decisions for EEA states, as well as proposals for a greener financial services industry, reforming access to the UK’s markets, and growing and investing in fintech.

While regulators in the EU have lifted the temporary COVID-19-related short-selling bans, they will monitor the markets and impose further restrictions if required.

By Carl Fernandes and Sherryn Buehlmann

Regulators in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain announced that the temporary short-selling bans imposed in those jurisdictions expired on 18 May 2020 at 11.59pm.

Most of the bans restricted the increase of “net short positions” in certain shares under the purview of the relevant regulators and were introduced to curb market volatility and manage uncertainties surrounding the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Article 20 of the Short Selling Regulation (SSR), under which the bans were introduced, permits national competent authorities in the EU a reasonable amount of discretion to implement short-selling bans in respect of shares. As a result, the scope of the various bans differed by jurisdiction (for example, in terms of duration, prohibited activities/outcomes, and exemptions). Market participants faced difficulty understanding and implementing the required changes across their entire global trading operations in the short period between the announcement of the bans and their effective date.