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ARTICLE · 22 DECEMBER 2015

Structured Thoughts: News For The Financial Services Community, Volume 6, Issue 9

Morrison Foerster
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On 26 November 2015, the European Securities and Markets Authority ("ESMA") published its Final Report on its "Guidelines on complex debt instruments and structured deposits".

GlobalFinance and Banking
Lloyd Harmetz
Lloyd Harmetz
Bradley Berman
Bradley Berman
Jeremy Jennings-Mares
Jeremy Jennings-Mares
Peter Green
Peter Green
Lewis Lee
Lewis Lee
Anna Pinedo
Anna Pinedo
James Schwartz
James Schwartz
Alex Stone
Alex Stone
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ESMA Final Report on Complex Debt Instruments and Structured Deposits 

On 26 November 2015, the European Securities and Markets Authority ("ESMA") published its Final Report on its "Guidelines on complex debt instruments and structured deposits". The Final Report follows ESMA's Consultation Paper on the same issue published in March 2015 on which we previously reported1.

Background and Initial Consultation

The Consultation Paper is focused on the "execution-only exemption" contained within the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ("MiFID") and the amendments to such exemption made pursuant to a recast MiFID Directive now expected to come into force from January 2018 ("MiFID II"). This exemption relates to the level of diligence that firms are required to carry out on their clients before providing financial services to such clients. Where an execution-only service relates to non-complex financial instruments specified in Article 19(6) of the existing

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