Mifid II in Austria: an example of unintended consequences
By Markus Fellner and Martin Wallner
December 15, 2020, IFLR
Mifid II was passed in response to the global financial crisis a decade ago, with the aim to improve the integrity and transparency of financial markets and strengthen investor protection. Mifid II marked the peak stage of regulatory density of European capital markets law, and its numerous legal requirements framed a constitution for financial markets of sorts, built on the basic principle of ‘the greater the transparency, the greater the investor protection’.
Initially, many of the directive’s complex legal amendments were a challenge for both the development of appropriate technical systems and the timely implementation of the necessary legal regulations. In Austria, Mifid II was implemented through the Austrian Securities Supervision Act 2018 (Wertpapieraufsichtsgesetz 2018, SSA 2018) and the Austrian Stock Exchange Act 2018 (Börsegesetz 2018, SEA 2018), which entered into force on January 3 2018. Moreover, the implementation of Mifid II enabled the revision of over 40 acts of legislation.
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