The pushback against the upcoming commodities rules under MiFID II continues, firstly with more concern from the farming sector, this time expressed on the Herald Scotland website in this article (free subscription). The concern is that the ability to trade in futures and forwards will be curtailed or become more expensive. We have seen such concerns expressed in the sector before.

There is also concern from the larger traders. This article on the FT website (free subscription) talks about a report by Trafigura highlighting the potential impact on the industry, and also cites concerns by others in the sector. The report itself can be found here.

The wider concern does not appear to be shared by regulators, who in the MiFID II hearing last month(see notes here) stressed that the intention of the rule is to capture commodity traders under financial regulation, and that catching those in the industry under MiFID II was not an unintended side effect. As a result, while some refinement is possible, the rules are unlikely to see substantive changes.

Never the less, the impact on industries such as farming, which are not the target of the rules, may see more tweaking. The key will be the differentiation between those intended to be caught, and those end users for whom trading activity is genuinely ancillary.