On June 27, the European Commission published a report (COM(2019) 292 final) on the group supervision and capital management provisions under the Solvency II Directive (2009/138/EC).
In the report, addressed to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, the Commission assesses the benefit of enhancing the Solvency II Directive provisions on group supervision and capital management within a group.
The Commission considers that some areas of the prudential group supervision framework may not ensure harmonized implementation of the rules by groups and national supervisors. This has the potential to have an impact on both the level playing field and capital management strategies.
The Commission has identified some legal uncertainties and diverging supervisory practices that can have a significant impact on group solvency. They concern group own funds, the group solvency capital requirement (SCR) and the group minimum capital requirement (MCR). The use of group internal models may raise additional issues. The Commission has also found a wide variety of interpretations of the group governance provisions.
The Commission has found that diverging implementation of the group supervision provisions may be detrimental to policyholder protection, depending on how national supervisors determine the scope of supervision, and exercise supervision at the level of parent holding companies. In addition, in light of the wide differences between the supervisory powers of different national supervisors, the Commission believes it is necessary to assess the appropriateness of the early intervention powers embedded in the Solvency II regime.
The Commission recognizes that it has identified a number of important issues that may need to be addressed, possibly including by way of legislative changes. However, further analysis is needed on the impact of the potential changes on the existing requirements. Therefore, the Commission deems it appropriate to include group supervision in the scope of its 2020 general review of the Solvency II Directive. As part of the 2020 review, the Commission has invited the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) to provide technical advice on the issues identified in the report, as well as other related issues that may be detrimental to policyholder protection.