The European Council have adopted the text of the Benchmark Regulation, which is another step towards it being published in the European Journal. It goes info effect 18 months later. A press release from the Council can be found here.

The legislation tightens the process around benchmark setting, with rules for administrators and  different rules for contributors. The rules for contributors also depend on whether the entity is supervised (i.e. a “regulated entity” under MiFID). There are different rules for commodity benchmarks. The rules also differ depending on the type of benchmark in question, divided into critical, significant and non-significant.