The second EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and the
EU Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (together
"MiFID II") are in force from 3 January 2018. There has
been much comment on the extra-territorial reach of MiFID II
generally. However, this piece is written from the perspective of
the Cayman Islands.
WHAT IS MIFID II?
The scope of MiFID II is rivalled only by the US Dodd-Frank Wall
Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Together with its EU
secondary measures, MiFID II is very many thousands of pages long.
While the EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive
("AIFMD") provides the legislative framework for
alternative investment fund management, MiFID II covers virtually
all other investment services and activities. MiFID II also
encompasses market structural reforms and trading obligations,
enhanced transparency requirements both pre- and post-trade and
numerous investor protection-type requirements which extend to
product design
