FIA calls for Mifid II transition for commodity firms

Licences required from start of 2018, but underlying data will be missing

Commodity firms are at risk of breaching the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II), an industry association is warning, because the data required to gain authorisation will not be fully available at the point the regime takes effect on January 3, 2018.

German authorities are already considering a transitional period, but many commodity traders operate from the UK, where the penalty for breaching Mifid II could include criminal sanctions and the voiding of transactions. As