The previously flagged one year delay to the implementation of MiFID II and MiFIR has been confirmed following the approval of the Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) of the European Council. The deadline for transposition into national legislation is now 3 July 2017 and the actual date of application is 3 January 2018.

MiFID II will have a wide ranging impact on the operation of regulated financial markets in the EU, including of commodity derivatives markets. The one year delay has been caused, at least in part, by difficulties in agreeing rules covering a number of aspects of the legislation, including the level of thresholds for determining whether commodity derivatives traders need to be regulated as financial firms and the size of position limits that commodity traders may hold.

The Baltic Exchange has been actively engaged in discussions with EU and UK regulators to try to ensure that the new measures do not place an unnecessary regulatory burden on shipping and commodity firms trading FFAs or have a damaging effect on the freight derivatives market as a whole.     

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