In deze bijdrage bespreken we het Single Rule Book, het initiatief van de Europese instellingen om te komen tot beter geüniformeerde regelgeving voor de Europese financiële sector. We gaan in dit artikel in op de achtergronden van het Single Rule Book, maar ook op de complicaties die dit nieuwe stelsel met zich mee brengt voor de compliance door de financiële sector. Er is soms sprake van verraderlijke veranderingen ten aanzien van het toepasselijke recht, waardoor de praktijk op het verkeerde been wordt gezet. Niet alles is wat het lijkt te zijn aan de hand van ‘officieel’ aandoende publicaties. In dit artikel wordt onder meer bepleit om deze problematiek op te lossen door de ingeslagen weg naar de totstandkoming van een enkelvoudig Single Rule Book consequent door te trekken.

With the introduction of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) in the European Union, the qualitative requirements for bank regulatory capital have changed. These changes aim at implementing in Europe the Basel III principles for better bank capital that is able to absorb losses of banks, without hindering the continued operations of banks. The qualitative requirements introduced with effect from 1 January 2014 do not relate to the measures introduced in Europe for bank’s recovery and resolution nor do they relate to the additional capital requirements imposed on systematically important banks. They also are not related to the newest requirements to be introduced in respect of total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) capital to assist with resolution of the largest G-SIB’s. One of the topics researched in this contribution concerns the direct horizontal effect of European regulations. This topic is relevant to address the potential consequences of contractual provisions in bank capital instruments conflicting with the CRR rules and, similarly, conflicts with bank corporate organizational documents. We conclude that in view of the direct binding effect in European jurisdictions of regulations, the CRR provisions create direct binding effects between banks and their shareholders and bond investors. Another topic addressed in this contribution concerns the original concepts introduced by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as regards capital requirements for banks that are beyond a point of viability. The CRR qualitative requirements for bank’s regulatory capital assume the bank’s operations are continued on a going concern basis and therefore the bank’s business is still viable. Measures to be taken gone concern and potential bail in mechanisms applied in that respect are regulated in other parts of European law. We observe in this contribution that the relevant regulations in Europe are misaligned and therefore create considerable uncertainties for banks in Europe.

In January 2014 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) updated its 2010 guidelines on the leverage ratio (LR). The leverage ratio is only monitored at this stage with no firm minimum requirement in place. But the European Commission still needs to transpose the revised rules into EU regulation. The pressure is on, because any amendments need to be implemented before January 1 2015 when new LR disclosure rules come into effect. In October the EC published delegate regulation to streamline the calculation of the LR in Europe, which is now pending adoption. In the meantime the debate for the right minimum LR requirement gains pace. The UK has published national rules, and authorities and politicians in Sweden and the Netherlands discuss the need for higher thresholds.

With the adoption of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, Europe has completed one of the three important pillars of the Banking Union. This directive introduces the resolution tool of 'bail in' that aims at putting the burden of bank rescue operations with the private sector. Bail outs financed with public money must be avoided, as a result of this new mechanism. The original ideas for contingent capital instruments had been developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2010, albeit that the concepts of the Basel Committee aimed at forcing the bank’s shareholders and creditors to contribute to loss absorption exclusively in situations where a bank was beyond a point of viability. The manner in which that concept was described at the time of issue of the report in 2010, suggested that the contingent capital mechanism was particularly to be applied in circumstances where a bank’s operation were still going concern. The European transposition of the ideas of the Basel Committee has taken place at the level of two different frameworks.

Op 1 januari 2014 werden de meeste bepalingen Verordening (EU) Nr. 575/2013 van 26 juni 2013 betreffende prudentiële vereisten voor kredietinstellingen en beleggingsondernemingen van kracht. De dag ervoor diende Richtlijn 2013/36/EU van 26 juni 2013 betreffende toegang tot het bedrijf van kredietinstellingen en het prudentieel toezicht op kredietinstellingen en beleggingsondernemingen in de nationale wetgeving van de lidstaten van de Europese Unie te zijn omgezet. Deze implementatie deadline heeft Nederland niet gehaald. CRR en CRD IV vormen tezamen genomen de Europese omzetting van het Bazels kapitaal- en liquiditeitsakkoord van 2010 (hierna: Bazel III). Deze grootscheepse aanpassing van de Europese en Nederlandse regelgeving voor banken en beleggingsondernemingen is een alomvattende respons op de tijdens de crisis in de financiële markten geïdentificeerde tekortkomingen in de toezichtregels en het uitgeoefende toezicht. CRR en CRD IV vormen tezamen ook een belangrijk compartiment van het Europese Single Rule Book.

As the sovereign debt crisis further developed in Europe in the autumn of 2011, European lawmakers where required to address the impact bank failures could have on the deteriorating financial position of certain member states. The agreed upon strengthening of the resilience of banks by increasing the capital base as followed from the Basel III accord9, was to be introduced at a quicker pace than followed from the ordinary law making process to implement Basel III in Europe. The initial proposals for the CRD IV legislation package were only published a few months before the sovereign debt crisis spun off. The debate on that comprehensive CRD IV proposal of the European Commission was only in an early stage. At the same time, it became clear that banks in the Eurozone (and in other parts of the European Union) faced significant constraints as regards certain sovereign debt positions.