Steven Maijoor, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) spoke on March 20, regarding ESMA’s work during the past year. In his speech, Mr. Maijoor commented on ESMA’s work in relation to:

1. supervisory convergence to limit the scope for regulatory arbitrage in light of the United Kingdom’s upcoming withdrawal from the European Union and UK-based firms re-locating into the remaining EU member states—in particular, the steps to prevent firms from using “letterbox entities” (entities without the necessary substance to meet regulatory requirements) to comply with the requirement to locate within an EU member state and ESMA’s creation of the Supervisory Coordination Network;

2. the changes to cost transparency focusing on the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), the related Regulation and the Regulation on key information documents for packaged retail and insurance-based investment products or “PRIIPs;” and

3. the review of the Pan-European European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and the potential expansion of ESMA’s supervisory convergence to promote the EU project for a Capital Markets Union