European Council leaves buy-side in the dark

摘要

The European Commission proposed texts for the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID2) in October 2011. The European Parliament voted through its amendments to the texts a year later. Following disagreements among member state governments, in May 2013, the Irish government - which holds the rotating EU Council presidency until June 30,2013 presented a compromise text.This new compromise proposes capping trades on unlit trading venues - so-called dark pools, where the prices of individual trades are not displayed. No individual unlit venue would be able to host more than 5% of trades in any given EU-based instrument over the previous rolling 12-month period, and all dark trading in any given instrument must stop if unlit trades constitute more than 8% of the total volume on a rolling 12-month basis. These suspensions would last for six months in both cases. Block trades in sizes above a certain threshold (yet to be decided) would be exempt.