On March 17, Markus Ferber, MEP, the European Parliament’s Rapporteur for MiFID II, published a press release announcing that the European Commission had sent back to European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) the draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) on non-equity transparency, the ancillary activity exemption, and position limits for commodity derivatives for further revision to take the Parliament’s position more thoroughly into account.

Mr. Ferber explains that the latest draft RTS were not acceptable to the Parliament, especially the position limits regime, which he believes urgently needs a comprehensive redrafting to effectively curb food speculation. He believes that the latest drafts were not up to standard and would not have solved the problem at all.

Mr. Ferber expects ESMA to revisit the technical standards swiftly, thoroughly and to adapt them in line with the Parliament’s remarks. However, the redrafting must not further delay the overall MiFID II timeline. He adds that, since the Parliament’s concerns were known and available for quite some time, the Commission and ESMA could easily have acted earlier.