The European Parliament adopted the report on the prudential assessment of bank takeovers in first reading.
The plenary adopted a single consolidated amendment to the proposal that was agreed between the three institutions and ought therefore to be acceptable to the Council.
The text adopted includes the following provisions, among others:
where the Commission proposed that supervisory authorities should take their decision within 30 working days of being notified of a proposed acquisition, the new text sets the limit at 60 working days;
the relevant supervisory authority may interrupt this period to ask for necessary additional information from the proposed acquirer, as long as it does so NO more than 50 days into the period; the interruption can be for up to 20 working days (or 30 in the case of non-EU acquirers or those not already subject to financial supervision under EU directives);
five criteria are set out as the only basis for the decision of whether the acquisition is in line with 'sound and prudent' management of the organisation concerned: the reputation of the proposed acquirer and proposed management, the acquirer's financial soundness, whether they will comply with EU prudential requirements, and whether they might be involved in money laundering or terrorist financing;
it is made clear that Member States may not impose more stringent requirements than those set out in the directives as amended.
The Commission originally proposed that it should be able to request the supervisory authorities for the documents on which their decision is based. Rather than providing new powers, the text as adopted includes a statement in the introductory section, reminding Member States that, under the Treaty, they should cooperate with Commission by providing information needed to determine whether they, the Member States, have infringed their obligations under the directive.
Since the text adopted has been already been agreed in informal negotiations with the Council, the proposals should enter force without further changes.
'We believe that with this Directive we will remove the ambiguity that has existed so far', Commissioner McCreevy said, welcoming the Parliaments vote.
Press release
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