De financiële crisis van 2007 en de crisis in de Eurozone van 2011 heeft geleid tot een nieuwe golf van regelgeving voor de banksector. Politici en toezichthouders in Europa lijken te streven naar nog meer nieuwe en strenge regels. ‘Principles based’ regelgeving waar ondernemingen zelf verantwoordelijk zijn voor de inrichting van de compliance omgeving die is afgestemd op de aard, omvang en complexiteit van de onderneming wordt tegenwoordig niet meer verdedigbaar geacht. De heersende opvatting is dat strenge en gedetailleerde (wetgevers en toezichthouders) ‘rules based’ regels een nieuwe crisis in de bankensector beter kunnen voorkomen. Bovendien heeft de overdracht van soevereiniteit aan de Europese instellingen na de crisis geleid tot meer geüniformeerde Europese regels in de vorm van het zogenaamde Single Rule Book. Daarbij lijken zowel de Europese Commissie als de Europese Centrale Bank in zijn rol van toezichthouder in het Single Supervisory Mechanism van de Bankenunie, de twee belangrijkste wetgevers voor de Europese bankensector te zijn geworden. Dit gaat ten koste van de rol van de European Banking Authority en van de nationale wetgevers in de Europese Unie.

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.