Giancarlo Urges European Regulators to Avoid Overlapping Oversight
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Chris Giancarlo, speaking in Berlin on May 7, stressed the importance of cross-border regulatory cooperation and urged European regulators to avoid reopening a carefully negotiated agreement on equivalence.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Chris Giancarlo
“I am committed to outcomes-based deference decisions that acknowledge that different regulators can get to the same result in different ways,” Giancarlo said in remarks to the Association of German Banks. “Different regulators use different legal frameworks and different legal tools, and we need to respect such differences when they achieve similar regulatory outcomes.”
Giancarlo referred to a pending EU legislative proposal for a new framework for the regulation and supervision of central counterparties, and reiterated his concern with its approach to clearinghouses outside the EU. He complained that it would subject U.S. CCPs to overlapping EU regulation and supervision without "due deference" to CFTC regulation and supervision, which the EU agreed to in 2016.
"Additional regulation is unnecessary and adds to confusion and cost," Giancarlo said. "Regulatory and supervisory deference is the path upon which the United States and Europe should journey together."
His comments came as European officials continue to press their argument that the existing approach will not be sufficient post-Brexit. Speaking in Frankfurt on April 23, Steven Maijoor, the chairman of the European Securities and Markets Authority, reiterated ESMA’s support for the proposed introduction of an enhanced supervisory regime for third-country CCPs. Under this proposal, ESMA would have direct supervisory tasks over third-country CCPs that are systemically important to the European financial system. He welcomed this “dual regime,” which he described as “in line with the model applied in other jurisdictions outside the EU” and “would clearly better serve the post-Brexit landscape.”
