Effective protection against discriminatory measures is an essential requirement for European investors to invest in Europe. Around 200 investment protection agreements between the Member States of the European Union are currently ensuring a high level of investor protection in Europe. However, due to the “Achmea” judgment of the European Court of Justice, those agreements are to be terminated until the end of 2019 following a communication of the EU Commission. Deutsches Aktieninstitut ...

Deutsches Aktieninstitut comments the ESA's consultation paper on PRIIPs and points out that corporate bonds are not in the scope of the respective EU-regulation. As there is a lasting uncertainty in the market clarification by the EU-Commission is necessary.

Deutsches Aktieninstitut welcomes the suggestions made by ESMA for prospectus simplification, such as removing the auditor's report in case of profit estimates and forecasts. At the same time, however, it warns against new burdens, which ESMA's proposal contains, too. It reminds that already on Level 1 of the revised  European Prospectus Regulation, new burdens had been introduced. In order to achieve the objectives to simplify prospectus, the new burdens at level 1 must be compensated on ...

European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) neither need more competences nor a new funding structure. The ESA review should rather focus on making the ESAs mandate more concrete and on improving stakeholder participation, in order to
ensure practicable compliance and to avoid the overstretching of mandates by the ESAs. These are the core messages of Deutsches Aktieninstitut’s position paper on that issue

Deutsches Aktieninstitut urges the EU Commission to reflect consequently the needs of companies seeking capital market finance and using derivates for risk management purposes in the Capital Markets Union. The current direction of the Capital Market Union still fails to meet this objective. This position paper has been contributed to the mid term review of the Capital Market Union project.

Deutsches Aktieninstitut appreciates the initiative of the EU Commission to determine, how the market for retail financial services can be further opened up, whilst maintaining an adequate level of consumer and investor protection. However, the baseline assumptions of the EU Commission’s Green Paper on “Retail financial services - Better products, more choice, and greater opportunities for consumers and businesses” (COM(2015) 630 final) from December 2015 does not properly reflect the ...

Deutsches Aktieninstitut asks the legislator to use the proposed MiFID-delay to fix shortcomings of the level-1-text. Besides others this applies for the treatment of emission allowances within the ancillary activity exemption and the introduction of a waiver for the suitability report.

In order to promote public equity financing and equity culture in Germany Deutsches Aktieninstitut suggests to implement the recommandations developed by the round table initiated by the economics minister Gabriel as soon as possible.

In its comments Deutsches Aktieninstitut supports the European Commission’s initiative on building a Capital Markets Union. Further to the steps proposed by the Commission the demand-side of capital markets should, however, be addressed more precisely. This applies especially to the aspect of corporate finance. In addition, a cumulative impact-assessment of the regulatory initiatives launched in the aftermath of the financial crisis is necessary in order to identify and remove barriers for ...

The legal obligation to provide a key information document hinders banks to recommend shares to their retail customers. This is the result of a survey conducted by the Deutsches Aktieninstitut among 1,600 German banks. The Deutsches Aktieninstitut therefore asks for a reform of the existing legislation. Instead of a key information document for every share a key information document for the asset class "shares" should be sufficient.

Focus: Retirement Planning

Focus: Capital Markets Union

Focus: 50 years German stock corporation law

Focus: A New Start in Brussels