News

The stricter rules for over-the-counter derivatives trading have been adopted by the European Parliament on 29 March aim to make these transactions more transparent and allow a better overview of the market. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will play a key role in the monitoring process. “EU legislation to make trade over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives safer and more transparent was approved by an overwhelming majority in Parliament. Derivatives trading is widely believed to have contributed to the global financial crisis. The draft regulation had been provisionally agreed by Parliament and Council negotiators on 9 February.”More information from the European Parliament’s news service: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/content/20120322FCS41684/3/html/Clamping-down-on-the-derivatives-trade. According to MEP Evelyn Regner (S&D) who welcomed this “centrepiece of financial market regulation”, better regulation of derivative trading can pave the way to introducing a Financial Transaction Tax and can also help to diminish speculation in commodity trading. See http://evelyn-regner.at/?p=3515.UNI Europa Finance welcomes this step towards more transparency and clear monitoring rules but regrets that the supervidory authority ESMA does not accept UNI Europa's demand to take employee representatives on board in their stakeholder group.