The past years have seen many regulatory initiatives being rolled out globally and in the EU. These include several financial regulatory regimes which have each been implemented within a relatively short space of time. Although each regime has different objectives, there are often overlaps and inconsistencies between them. This applies for example to the data reporting elements of rules such as EMIR and MiFID II, where similar fields are required in different ways to accomplish different aims. This applies in particular to investment firms under MiFID II, but also to non investment firms such as those in the energy and commodity markets.

The European Commission has recently published this report which outlines plans to rationalise rule-sets  across financial regulation in Europe. Part of the report focuses on the rationalisation of reporting requirements, both in the short term through tactical changes to rules, such as the EMIR review (see here), and also in the medium term by adopting a single reporting repository style approach, which incorporates standardisation. On the topic of standardisation. ISDA recently made further steps in pushing forward their Common Domain Model for representation trades (see here).

The further move by the Commission represents the shift in regulatory focus from new regulations to making existing regulations work,which is also seen in other jurisdictions (for example see here). While this is welcomed by most, it also presents further changes to be made in coming years.

Those in energy and commodities also need to comply with energy regulation. Further alignment will be required, for example under REMIT reporting, in order to eventually move to a simpler but better functioning regulatory landscape.