On October 31, the European Scrutiny Committee published a letter they received from John Glen MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, regarding potential equivalence arrangements that might be put in place between the UK and the EU following Brexit. The European Scrutiny Committee is a committee of the House of Commons and is chaired by Sir William Cash MP.

Reciprocal equivalence between the UK and the EU are highly important post-Brexit in order to minimize disruption to financial services, which has been the topic of many previous Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest articles (e.g., see the August 16, 2019 edition).

In the letter, Mr. Glen explained that the UK and EU will “start assessing equivalence with respect to each other” as soon as possible after Brexit, and intend to have completed these assessments by the end of June 2020. This statement affirms the position set out in the original and the revised Political Declarations between the UK and the EU.

Mr. Glen also emphasized that the goal of the UK government is to have a “deep and comprehensive future relationship with the EU,” but did not provide any further details.

The letter is available here.