Wednesday November 27 2013

The Central Bank of Ireland has announced that it intends to comply with the “Guidelines on remuneration policies and practices (MiFID)” and ESMA will be notified accordingly.

On 17 September 2012, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) commenced a consultation process on “Guidelines on remuneration policies and practices (MiFID)” (Ref. ESMA/2012/570). This process concluded on 7 December 2012 and guidelines were subsequently drafted and approved by ESMA. The guidelines were published on 11 June 2013 (Ref. ESMA/2013/606) and they apply to investment firms (as defined in Article 4(1)(1) of MiFID), credit institutions that provide investment services and UCITS management companies and external Alternative Investment Fund Managers when they are providing the investment services of individual portfolio management or non-core services. (For further details, see paragraph 1 of the Guidelines under the heading “Scope”).

In accordance with the timeframes specified in the Guidelines, the Central Bank is due to confirm its intention to comply with the Guidelines to ESMA by 29 November 2013 and the Guidelines will come into effect 60 calendar days thereafter on 28 January 2014. All firms within the Scope of these Guidelines are expected to comply with the Guidelines from 28 January 2014 and to take the Guidelines into account when devising their remuneration arrangements.

Firms are not required to report back to the Central Bank in response to this notification.

Any further queries should be addressed to mifidconductofbusiness@centralbank.ie.

Click on the above link for more details.