Today, ESMA confirmed that it has received a letter from the European Commission on certain aspects of its draft MiFID II rules. A spokesperson stated: “We are studying the contents and are deciding on the way forward.”

It was announced last month that the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) would be delayed until January 2018. Directly after that, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) shared the details of its work on supervisory convergence, which included preparation and finalisation of data and infrastructure for the now infamous MiFID II.

The Commission has now called on ESMA to rethink some of the debated aspects of its draft reforms for the directive.

Further delays ahead?

This raises the question of further delays in implementation, although no official statement from either ESMA or the Commission has made any mention of this.