Association Française des entreprises d'investissement

The International Council of Securities Associations (ICSA) has published “Best Practices for Regulatory Consultation”, an update of the 2004 “Statement on Regulatory and Self-Regulatory Consultation Practices”. ICSA had noted that the wide-ranging finance industry reforms underway in many countries were making it impossible to comply with generally accepted principles for regulatory consultations.

The European Forum of Securities Associations (EFSA), an informal group of organisations from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK, met in Frankfurt on 27 and 28 February.

The draft law on the separation and regulation of banking activities in France (see Feature), adopted at first reading by the lower house of parliament in mid-February, was passed up to the senate in late March.

The European Commission has presented its plan for a financial transaction tax (FTT) following approval by the European Parliament and authorisation from the Council on an enhanced cooperation involving 11 member states in favour of the tax: Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. The FTT is slated to raise €35 billion.