The proposed regulation will provide greater consumer and investor protection and lessen the risks of participating in digital finance.

By Stuart Davis

The EU Commission has published a proposal for a wide-ranging EU regulation covering cryptoassets and e-money tokens, both of which are currently largely unaddressed in EU financial services legislation.

The draft Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation (MiCA) has been designed to:

  • Increase legal certainty in the area of cryptoassets
  • Support innovation and promote the development of cryptoassets and the wider use of distributed ledger technology (DLT)
  • Instil appropriate levels of consumer and investor protection and market integrity in an area that presents many of the same risks as traditional financial instruments
  • Ensure financial stability

New resource developed following increased regulatory focus on outsourcing.

Latham & Watkins has partnered with the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) and law firms Matheson and BSP to develop: Outsourcing – Guidance on the Legal and Regulatory Framework, a pioneering resource examining the key European legislation, rules, and guidance for financial services firms to consider in relation to outsourcing.

In light of the plethora of legislative change and increasing regulatory focus on outsourcing in financial services, as well as the growing range of sources that need to be taken into account to ensure compliance in this area, the Paper is designed to provide compliance, legal, and risk teams within regulated firms with a single reference point of regulatory requirements. The resource also provides a number of practical tools to help firms effectively map out their processes and procedures for legal compliance.

Partners Nicola Higgs, Fiona Maclean, and Andrew Moyle and associates Anne Mainwaring, Jagveen Tyndall, Oscar Bjartell, Sean Wells, and Sidhartha Lal led a team of more than 25 lawyers from five Latham offices and local law firms Matheson (Ireland) and BSP (Luxembourg) to produce the Paper.