The regulation holiday effect

Global harmonisation of financial regulation is high on the wish list of many trading firms and, in one sense at least, the regulators in Europe and the US are pretty well harmonised. Both have a tendency to publish long-awaited documents right before major holidays. Last week we saw another example of the regulation ‘holiday effect’ with the CFTC publishing its consultation on RegAT (aka SNPRM) in the Federal Register just ahead of Thanksgiving, thereby kicking off the 60-day consultation period. ESMA similarly chose to publish MiFID II consultation papers right before both the spring bank holiday and the Christmas break in 2014.

Still, with the supplemental notice on RegAT finally published, the industry can at least begin to discuss in earnest the rules that look set to have a major impact on the ETD space. Before that, though, I will quickly pencil in a slot in my diary for Friday 23rd December. Chances are this could be the next triple witching day for regulation.