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Consob Regulatory Activities Plan for the year 2022 published (8 April 2022)

The Plan of Regulatory Activities for the year 2022, prepared in implementation of the article no. 2 of the Regulations concerning the procedures for the adoption of Consob general regulatory acts (Resolution no. 19654 of 5 July 2016) has been published. Said provision, as amended by Resolution no. 22203 of 10 February 2022, in fact, provides that Consob, for the purposes of the effective and efficient pursuit of its goals, defines a non-binding planning document containing: i) the annual Plan of activities it intends to carry out for the adoption of general regulatory acts; ii) the two-year Plan of regulatory impact verification activities.

The function of the Regulatory Plan is to inform the public on the main issues that will be the subject of Consob's regulatory activity, to increase the effectiveness of the consultation processes with the market. It is focused on the regulatory activity and on the VIRs that Consob plans to carry out - respectively - in the course of 2022 and the two-year period 2022-2023.

The regulatory activity for the current year is characterized not only by the adaptation to the new European provisions, but also by the identification of the measures favouring the access to the capital market and reducing the costs of listing, in the context of a broader project for the revision of domestic regulations, promoted by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), aimed at relaunching the competitiveness and attractiveness of national financial markets.

The Plan includes a brief introduction about the developments of the European and national regulatory framework in the previous year (2021), the evolution of the same expected for the reference year (2022) and a table with the program of regulatory interventions planned for the 2022. The latter include:

- the regulatory changes regarding prospectuses and admission to listing, in the light of the work of the Task Force on the capital market relaunch promoted by the MEF;

- the interventions to the Issuers' Regulation regarding takeover bids/OPSCs, as a result of the results of the VIR (currently in progress) on the related regulations;

- amendments to the Intermediaries Regulation as a result of the adaptation of primary legislation to Regulation (EU) 2019/2033 and Directive (EU) 2019/2034 ("IFR / IFD" package) concerning the prudential requirements of investment firms;

- changes to the Intermediaries Regulation and the Market Regulations for the adaptation of the national discipline to the measures introduced as part of the Capital Market Recovery Package and to the delegated acts of implementation of MiFID II, UCITS and IDD regulations on sustainable finance;

- amendments to the Issuers' Regulation as a result of the adaptation of primary legislation to Directive (EU) 2019/1160 and Regulation (EU) 2019/1156 on cross border distribution of funds;

- the adaptation of Consob Regulation no. 18592/2013 (Crowdfunding Regulation) to the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 on European Crowdfunding service providers for businesses;

- the adoption of an implementation discipline regarding the authorization and supervision of subjects entitled to submit bids on the auction market for emission allowances pursuant to article no. 20-ter, paragraph 1, of the Consolidated Law on Finance (TUF);

- the adaptation of secondary legislation to Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 on securitisations.

The planning document also presents the table of VIR activities that the Institute intends to perform over the two-year period, which concern: i) the Issuers' Regulation, limited to the provisions on takeover bids/OPSCs; ii) the provisions contained in the Sanctioning Regulations; iii) the provisions of the Regulation on the disclosure of non-financial information.

Finally, it should be noted that in the 2022 Plan a further section has been provided for the process, already started, for the revision and adoption of certain soft law acts, whose conclusion is expected by the end of the year. The aforementioned review of the application guidelines will be aimed at pursuing full alignment with the EU legal framework and the elimination of any gold-plating profiles.
-  Consob Regulatory Activities Plan for the year 2022 published (8 April 2022)