SIFMA Advocates Financial Services Regulatory Coordination in TTIP

SIFMA called for financial services regulatory coordination to be fully covered in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ("TTIP") to help address market fragmentation. In a press release, SIFMA stated: "In order for TTIP to realize its full potential, we believe any agreement should treat financial services like every other sector in the negotiations and be dealt with in a comprehensive manner, primarily by including a framework for financial services regulatory cooperation but also through solutions to outstanding market access issues."

SIFMA identified the following "three important characteristics that any successful regulatory dialogue should include and TTIP should recognize:" (i) a framework within TTIP that could provide assurances that cross-border issues would be considered before, not after, they become problems; (ii) a workable framework for future policymaking through TTIP that would allow the international implications of emerging issues to be discussed in a timely and effective way and that would increase the potential for delivering workable rules; and (iii) retention of the prudential exemption under which a financial regulator may impose regulation that is inconsistent with an FTA obligation for legitimate prudential reasons.

The twelfth round of negotiations for the TTIP agreement between the EU and the U.S. will take place this week from February 22, 2016, to February 26, 2016.