Overview
The United Kingdom made headlines when it voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. Popularly named “Brexit”, the move began a tumultuous four-year voyage that seemingly came to completion on January 31, 2020 when the UK’s withdrawal became official. However, as many are coming to realise, the nation is just now beginning to face some of its biggest challenges yet.
While the UK may be officially out of the EU, the European Union Withdrawal Agreement Act of 2020 (EUWA) called for a transitory implementation period that will end on December 31st of this year. Until that deadline, the UK will largely be treated as a Member-state of the EU while trade negotiations are underway. However, the agreement period largely prevents an extension beyond the fast-approaching 11-month deadline, making this the country’s last chance at striking a satisfactory trade deal with the EU.
The EUWA currently provides that directly applicable and operative EU laws such as the Market Abuse Regulation, the Transparency Directive, and the Prospectus Regulation will be converted into UK law at the end of the year. However, this does not amount to a workable level of certainty, in that such regulation, once converted, would be exposed to domestic revision or amendment.
Impact on Capital Market Regulation
The potential failure to achieve a trade deal presents particularly significant issues concerning, firstly, the “passporting” system (i.e. the system that enables banks and financial services firms that are authorised in any EU or EEA state to trade freely with minimal regulatory oversight – thereby serving as the foundation of the EU single market for financial services) and, secondly, the creation of a new EU Capital Markets Union, of which the UK has traditionally been a strong supporter.
More specifically, the UK will no longer be a part of the EU’s single-market system and will be treated as a third-party country lacking passporting or equivalence rights in the EU. This could be detrimental to both the EU, who relies on UK’s economic activity to bring revenue into the EU, and for the UK, a hub for international transactions instigated by firms that capitalise on the minimal red-tape requirements made possible by the Capital Markets Union. Abdication of the passporting and equivalence practices in the UK could particularly affect instances where there are lower numbers of retail investors in more than one Member State, as individual approvals would be required in each such Member State due to the absence of said practices.
What Practitioners Need to Know
As it stands, the presumption is that the UK will be considered a third-party country at the end of the implementation period. Consequently, some UK firms with operations in the EU are relocating to EU member-states (or are considering doing so) in order to preserve their passporting rights. EU regulators and supervisors are monitoring this activity, and it is important for professionals at every level to stay updated on the various guidelines and resources released by authorities to assist practitioners during the transition period.
With the potential failure to achieve a free trade deal still on the table, businesses and their advisors need to be prepared to reckon with its consequences. For example, the European Central Bank has been pressuring banks to accelerate their Brexit strategy plans and implement a substantial portion of its policies by the time the withdrawal deadline occurs. If firms cannot rely on regulatory equivalence, firms may have to incur significant costs that could affect their financial stability, hence why they should be considering potential mitigating mechanisms to counteract such effects.
Furthermore, on February 4, 2020, the Statutory Auditors and Third Country Auditors published their regulatory amendments to address deficiencies of retained EU law arising from the withdrawal of the UK from the EU in relation to the regulatory oversight and professional recognition of statutory auditors and third country auditors in the UK. In addition to updating the adequacy standards of nations such as China and South Africa, the amendments also provided an assessment framework for the equivalence of third countries’ audit regulatory frameworks and enabled the audit exemption currently available to subsidiaries of UK and EEA parent undertakings to continue to be available to those subsidiaries where their financial years have already begun.
While players across the board are giving their best efforts to deliver a smooth and fair transition of the UK out of the EU, only time will tell how complicated and contentious the terms of such transition will be. With or without a free trade arrangement, it is especially important for financial professionals, attorneys, and other advisory professionals to be vigilant in their assessment of regulatory developments as they are released.