European Commission February 10, 2012 On February 2-3, 2012, the European Commission published a letter regarding Third Country Equivalence under Solvency II from Jonathan Faull, Director General Internal Market and Services, addressed to Gabriel Bernardino, Chair of EIOPA.

European Commission February 1, 2012 The European Commission has announced that it will block the planned merger of Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext due to the uncompetitive effect that this would have created in the area of European financial derivatives traded globally on exchanges. Although the companies claimed that the merger would benefit consumers through creating greater liquidity and by minimising the amount of collateral required to be posted for security, the European Commission decided that competition generated liquidity gains, and that greater benefits to the consumer could be

Financial Services Authority February 10, 2012 On September 16, 2011 the FSA and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority ("FINMA") announced the launch of an independent investigation into the events surrounding trading losses incurred by UBS in the London operations of its Investment Bank. The FSA has now commenced a formal enforcement investigation against UBS and is in close contact with FINMA which has also commenced enforcement action against UBS. Cross References: Press release from FINMA (Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority).

European Securities and Markets Authority January 30, 2012 On 30 January, ESMA published a consultation paper (ESMA/2012/44) which sets out future guidelines on UCITS Exchange-Traded Funds (UCITS ETFs) and other UCITS-related issues. The proposals cover both synthetic and physical UCITS ETFs and detail the obligations to come for UCITS ETFs, index-tracking UCITS, efficient portfolio management techniques, total return swaps and strategy indices for UCITS.

European Securities and Markets Authority February 2, 2012 On 2 February, ESMA launched a Central Rating Repository (CEREP) which provides information on credit ratings issued by those 15 Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) which are either registered or certified in the European Union. The CEREP database will allow investors to assess for the first time on a single platform the performance and reliability of credit ratings on different types of ratings, asset classes and geo-graphical regions over the time period of choice.