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Consob Notice of 3 February 2022

Notice regarding the revocation of communications no. 9019104 of 2 March 2009 and no. 0097996 of 22 December 2014

Following the financial crisis, the European-source regulatory framework for the provision of investment services has recently been heavily innovated with the aim of "better protecting investors, strengthening confidence [...] and ensuring that the Supervisory Authorities had adequate powers to carry out their duties "(Recital no. 4 of Directive 2014/65/EU).

The regulations introduced by Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II) and Regulation (EU) no. 600/2014 (MiFIR) raised the standards of investor protection, affecting the whole life cycle of the products distributed to customers, starting from the stage of creation/development and definition of their target market. In this context, the powers of the Supervisory Authorities were consequently strengthened, through the provision of specific intervention measures on the products.

Frequent level 3 documents (Guidelines, Q&A, Statement, Opinion) were provided by ESMA, in order to allow operators to encourage the homogeneous and more definite fulfillment of the obligations defined by the new provisions, standardizing the supervisory practices of the national Authorities.

Additional requirements, complementary to the MiFID II / MiFIR regulations, have had a significant impact on the system for distributing products to customers, contributing to the strengthening of investor protection. Regulation (EU) no. 1286/2014 laid down rules on key information documents (KID) which must be provided to retail investors for the purpose of distributing the PRIIPs. Restrictions on the marketing of certain products to retail customers have been imposed by "sectional" regulations: Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 (STS Regulation) on simple, transparent and standardized securitization; Regulation (EU) n. 2015/760 (ELTIF Regulation) on European long-term investment funds; Directive 2019/879/EU (BRRD II) on instruments subject to bail-in mechanisms. In addition, Directive 2016/97/EU (IDD) laid down specific regulations on the distribution of insurance-based investment products (IBIP).

In the MiFID I context, CONSOB had taken action, by issuing specific soft law acts, with the purpose of increasing the level of investor protection, anticipating at the national level some of the protections then introduced by MiFID II/MiFIR and by complementary legislation referred to above. In particular, with Communications no. 9019104 of 2 March 2009 and no. 0097996 of 22 December 2014, interpretative/application clarifications and recommendations for the distribution to customers of illiquid and complex financial products had been sent to intermediaries.

It is believed that with the current evolution of the European regulations on the provision of investment services and the consequent strengthening of investor protection measures, the guidelines provided by CONSOB in the aforementioned Communications have been directly or indirectly absorbed by the broader and more complex rules prescribed by the current regulatory framework.

Having said this, in order to facilitate the consistent application of the regulations and to ensure coordination between the current regulations of European source and the previous interpretations made by CONSOB, without prejudice to the context of maximum protection for investors, the following Communications are consequently revoked:

THE CHAIRMAN
Paolo Savona