Activites

• 1996/04/03 Final act published in Official Journal
  • Directive 1996/10
  • OJ L 085 03.04.1996, p. 0017
• 1996/03/21 Final act signed
• 1996/03/21 End of procedure in Parliament
• #1903
• 1996/02/26 Council Meeting
• 1995/12/14 Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading
  • T4-0616/1995 summary

    In adopting the recommendation for second reading by Mr FLORIO (FE, I), the European Parliament approved the common position of the Council on contractual netting with just one amendment: it called on the Member States to comply with the directive after its entry into force and not later than 30 June 1996. �

• 1995/12/13 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament summary

    The rapporteur, Mr Florio (UPE, I), pointed out that the Council had incorporated in its common position 3 of Parliament’s 9 amendments. The Committee on Legal Affairs adopted 4 new amendments tabled by the rapporteur: the most important of these was Amendment No 3, which re-established the compulsory nature of the Directive in question, while the Council had opted in its common position for an optional approach. According to Mr Florio, it would be possible to avoid the lengthy conciliation procedure if the Commission confirmed that it was prepared to take over Amendment No 3 and Parliament, in accordance with the opinion of its Committee on Legal Affairs, withdrew Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4. Finally, the rapporteur pointed to the opportunity to eliminate the linguistic differences in the most current terminology in the text of the Directive, particularly for the terms ‘contrats de novation’ and ‘conventions de compensation’ (contractual netting). Commissioner MONTI stressed the importance of the Directive in question for investment companies and banks since the financial partners in third countries already benefited from regulations on contractual netting. With regard to Amendment No 3, it agreed to support the compulsory nature of the Directive.

• 1995/11/28 Vote in committee, 2nd reading
  • A4-0309/1995
• 1995/09/21 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 2nd reading
• 1995/09/05 Council position published
  • 08355/2/1995 summary

    The common position took over four of the nine amendment adopted by the European Parliament at first reading. It was based for the most part on the Commission's initial proposal and added certain elements aimed at clarifying the text and making it more transparent. * With regard to the preamble, the Council added two recitals which: - stated that Member States were obliged to strive for uniform assessment of contracts for novation and contractual netting agreements by their competent authorities with a view to the smooth functioning of the internal market; - stated that the calculation of add-ons should be based on effective rather than apparent notional amounts. * With regard to the provisions, the common position took account of fact that Member States could decide whether or not they recognised the contracts for novation or contractual netting agreements. * With regard to the annex, which was intended to replace Annex II of Directive 89/647/EEC, the Council made the following amendments: - definition of the term "counterparty"; - removal of the references to "aggregate books"; - legal opinions should be made available to the competent authorities but need not necessarily be forwarded to them; - reasoned legal opinions may be drawn up by types of contractual netting; - definition of the term "walkaway clause". * The Council did not retain Parliament's amendments aimed at: - highlighting that the directive would in fact reduce the level of banks' compulsory cover through their own resources; - calling on the Member States to incorporate in their national legislation the necessary provisions to ensure the legal validity of contractual netting (Recital 5a); - including in Annex II of the directive on capital adequacy (Directive 93/6/EC) a definition of the competent authorities in cases where Annex II of Directive 89/467/EEC was applied to investment firms, in accordance with those provisions. �

• 1995/05/10 Modified legislative proposal published
  • COM(1995)0170 summary

    The amended proposal incorporated the essence of the European Parliament's amendments, which aimed to: - clarify that the rules envisaged would reduce the level of banks' compulsory cover through their own resources; - call on the Member States to introduce provisions to ensure that the validity of contractual netting was legally recognised; - designate more clearly the authorities responsible for the prudential recognition of contractual netting agreements: the national authorities which were legally authorised to supervise investment firms, in accordance with a specific law or regulation; - introduce a definition of "counterparties": bilateral contractual netting agreements could be concluded not only by credit institutions, but also by all entities which were legally able to conclude such agreements; - make written and reasoned legal opinions on the validity of contractual netting agreements available to the authorities; - clarify that the action by the competent authorities when striving for a uniform assessment of the contractual netting agreements should not be responsible for distorting competition. �

• 1995/02/16 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T4-0040/1995 summary

    Parliament approved the Commission proposal subject to nine amendments, the purpose of which is to: - reiterate that the rules planned for recognizing netting would reduce the level of banks' compulsory cover through their own resources; - draw Member States' attention to the advisability of introducing the provisions needed to guarantee such recognition as quickly as possible; - stipulate that supervision would be carried out by the regulatory authorities in the Member States responsible for the credit institutions and investment firms involved; - extend the definition of counterparty to include all persons legally able to conclude "contractual netting" agreements under the legislation in their Member State of origin; - limit the obligation of credit institutions in contractual netting to self-certification of the presence of all the documents needed and to the facility for the regulatory authority to consult them if it so wishes; - make provision for the regulatory authorities to simplify the operations and verifications relating to the obligations made by the parties referred to in point 3 b) ii of Annex II; - stipulate that action by the competent authorities should not cause distortion of competition; The Commission accepted all the amendments.�

• 1995/02/15 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 1995/01/23 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A4-0009/1995
• 1994/05/06 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 1994/04/27 Legislative proposal published
  • COM(1994)0105 summary

    This proposal aimed to amend Annex II of Directive 89/647/EEC on a solvency ratio for credit institutions, which defined the way in which off-balance-sheet items relating to interest and exchange rates were to be treated. The aim of this was to give wider recognition to the risk-reducing effects of bilateral netting agreements. The only type of netting recognised by the current text as risk-reducing was bilateral netting for novation. The proposed amendment would enable the national supervisory authorities to recognise this quality among more types of bilateral netting and, in particular, bilateral netting for "close-out", provided that the legal validity of the netting agreement was established. The proposal gave significant consideration to the work carried out in this area at international level, by supervisory bodies, which ensured coherence with the major international prudential provisions. Since Directive 89/647/EEC was included in the annex to the EEA Agreement as a text that applied to them, the current proposal would naturally be extended to the EEA signatory countries. �

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(1994)0105
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A4-0009/1995
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T4-0040/1995
• Modified legislative proposal published: COM(1995)0170
• Council position published: 08355/2/1995
• Committee recommendation tabled for plenary, 2nd reading: A4-0309/1995
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading: T4-0616/1995
• : Directive 1996/10
• : OJ L 085 03.04.1996, p. 0017

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)