Seminar: 'EU Financial Services Law: New Regulatory and Supervisory Framework for Insurance' - Montesquieu Instituut

Target group

This seminar is intended for EU and national civil servants (especially in the Ministries of Finance and national financial supervisory authorities), lawyers or other staff of financial institutions, regulatory affairs managers in business and professional associations, academics and other professionals with an interest in financial services and insurance law.

Description

The onset of the financial crisis in autumn 2008 revealed the weaknesses of financial services regulation and supervision, both globally and within the European Union. In response to the financial crisis, the European institutions launched a wide-ranging reform of the regulatory landscape for financial services, aimed in the first instance at strengthening financial supervision at the EU level. Hereby, the focus was on early detection of risks threatening the stability of the financial system (via a coordinated macro-prudential supervision at the EU level), and secondly on greater control by the new European Supervisory Authorities over national supervisors.

The reform of the EU supervisory architecture has been accompanied by targeted changes to the financial services legislation, most prominently in the area of insurance regulation. The Solvency II Directive - a project aiming at a thorough overhaul of the existing system of risk management and supervision of the insurance undertakings - should be fully implemented at the beginning of 2014. In addition, the European Commission has tabled a legislative proposal on insurance mediation, inspired by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) and introducing new requirements on conflict of interest and conduct of business rules.

All these various initiatives herald a new approach to EU financial regulation and supervision and this seminar will clarify how they are intertwined and what their implications will be for financial institutions and consumers. They will also be analysed in relation to the new Lamfalussy procedure and the regulatory technical standards to be drafted by the new European Supervisory Authorities. These new measures and their place in the system of delegated and implementing acts will be examined in detail with the help of practical examples.

This seminar will provide an opportunity to analyse the legal set-up for supervision and regulation in the area of financial services (with a particular focus on the insurance sector). Experts from the European Commission, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, European Securities and Markets Authority as well as regulatory affairs professionals and academics will analyse practical implications of the recently adopted or planned EU legislation for national policy makers and supervisors, individual companies and consumers. The seminar should place particular emphasis on providing pragmatic solutions to problems faced in practice.

Learning Methodology

The seminar will consist of presentations, question & answer sessions and a workshop.

Objectives

The objectives of this seminar are three-fold:

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  To gain new insights into the regulatory and supervisory framework for insurance, and to discuss practical challenges facing national regulators and individual financial institutions as a consequence thereof;
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  To deepen participants’ knowledge of the new Lamfalussy procedure applying to financial services after the Lisbon Treaty;
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  To provide a platform for the exchange of experience and information-sharing among government, industry, trade organisations, regulators, financial lawyers and interested individuals.

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