Share rules on track

Date: 02/02/06

EU rules on share-trading will be published on Tuesday (7 February) after Germany and the UK said that they could live with the final compromise.

The Commission will issue both a directive and a regulation fleshing out the MIFID law, which dictates how financial firms should operate as well as making it easier for them to carry out cross-border transactions.

Officials originally wanted to put most of the detail into a regulation, which would have been directly applicable in all EU countries and had stricter rules on trading shares outside traditional stock markets, in line with demands from member states such as France.

The UK, which has a very flexible attitude to off-book trading, had demanded a directive which it could then adjust when transposing into national law. Berlin had also said the rules would be legally difficult to impose.

"There will be a directive and a regulation, but all sides have got pretty much what they were looking for," said a Commission official.

Article reports that a compromise between Member States had been found on implementing measures to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), EU rules on share trading. Following this, the European Commission on 6 February 2006 published draft implementing measures for the Directive (2004/39/EC).

European Commission: DG Internal Market and Services: Financial Services: Securities and Investment Funds: Investment services and regulated markets http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/securities/isd/index_en.htm

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