Mifid II adjustments fail to ease energy firms' worries

Revised ancillary business exemption would still catch large and mid-sized utilities

There is unlikely to be a way out of Mifid regulation for many energy firms

To some commodity market participants, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) might sound like an arcane piece of European Union legislation that has little effect on their business. Indeed, the 2004 Mifid directive contained generous exemptions for firms that trade commodities – including blanket exemptions for commodity dealers and firms trading on their own account – meaning many did not have to worry about the far-reaching implications of becoming licensed under the law.

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