Brexit Weekly

15 November 2018

EU and UK negotiators agree on a Brexit real, May gets backing from her cabinet but the text leaves The City as a rule-taker, Graham Bishop warns. Plus EU guidance in case of no deal, ESMA and ECB ruling on financial services regulation post Brexit and more.

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  Articles from 08 November 2018 - 15 November 2018

  Brexit & UK
 
 
European Commission recommends to the European Council (Article 50) to find that decisive progress has been made in Brexit negotiations
The negotiators of the European Commission and the United Kingdom reached a deal on the terms of the Article 50 Withdrawal Agreement.  View Article
Financial Times: UK and EU hammer out draft terms of Brexit divorce
Theresa May faces the most dangerous moment of her premiership on Wednesday as she challenges her divided cabinet to back a draft Brexit treaty and attempts to face down Conservative Eurosceptics.  View Article
European Commission intensifies preparedness work and outlines contingency action plan in the event of a no deal scenario with the UK
The European Commission published detailed information on its ongoing preparedness and contingency work in the event of a no deal scenario in the Article 50 negotiations with the United Kingdom.  View Article
Reuters: Draft Brexit deal ends Britain's easy access to EU financial markets
The United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed a deal that will give London’s vast financial centre only a basic level of access to the bloc’s markets after Brexit.  View Article
ESMA proposes a regulatory change to support the Brexit preparations of counterparties to uncleared OTC derivatives
The draft RTS propose, in the context of UK withdrawal from the EU, to introduce a limited exemption in order to facilitate the novation of certain non-centrally cleared OTC derivative contracts to EU counterparties during a specific time-window.  View Article
Financial Times: German minister tries to calm row over post-Brexit derivatives trading
Germany’s deputy finance minister Jörg Kukies has attempted to placate an EU-US row over Europe’s post-Brexit derivatives trading regulation.  View Article
ESMA asks clients of credit rating agencies and trade repositories to prepare for a no-deal Brexit
ESMA issued a public statement in order to raise market participants’ awareness on the readiness of CRAs and TRs for the possibility of no agreement being reached in the context of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union.  View Article
ECB's De Guindos: Promoting the stability and efficiency of EU financial markets beyond Brexit
Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, discusses the longer-term challenges that Brexit poses for the EU. He covers three issues that he believes need to be addressed through long-term innovation in the EU’s architecture.   View Article
ISDA: A predictable regulatory framework
The global regulatory reform initiative developed over the past 10 years to make derivatives markets more robust and resilient is now mostly in place, but there are a number of challenges on the horizon, including Brexit, which must be overcome before all the pieces fall into place.  View Article
BuzzFeed News: Senior ministers are telling Theresa May to go for a no-deal Brexit if the EU won't make concessions
Senior cabinet ministers led by Brexit secretary Dominic Raab will tell Theresa May that the current deal on offer from the EU is unacceptable and she should prepare for the UK to leave with no deal if she cannot secure further concessions.  View Article
Financial Times: A salutary Brexit warning from the serious Mr Johnson
The departure of transport minister Jo Johnson may deal a decisive blow to PM May's ability to pass her Brexit deal through Parliament. But Parliament’s final judgment must be on the merits of any deal rather than its capacity or otherwise to appease the warring factions in the Conservative party.  View Article
The Guardian: Justine Greening says Theresa May is ‘handing power to EU’ in Brexit deal
Theresa May was accused by a former cabinet colleague of planning the “biggest giveaway of sovereignty in modern times”, as she faced a potentially devastating pincer movement from Tory remainers and leavers condemning her Brexit plans.  View Article
The Guardian: Poll: one in five 'private' voters have changed their mind on Brexit
The People’s Vote campaign has claimed that YouGov findings show that MPs are failing to take account of people who do not discuss the Brexit issue in public.  View Article
The Guardian: UK cannot stop article 50 case going to ECJ, says Scottish court
Scotland’s highest court has refused the UK government leave to appeal its referral of a case to the European court of justice that seeks to establish whether the UK can unilaterally stop Brexit. This paves the way for the case to be heard in Luxembourg later this month.  View Article
The Guardian: Gordon Brown backs calls for second Brexit referendum
The former prime minister Gordon Brown has backed calls for a second Brexit referendum and said Britain should leave the door open to rejoining the European Union if it leaves as planned next March.  View Article
POLITICO: Spanish prime minister calls for second Brexit vote
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called on his UK counterpart to call a second referendum on Brexit, becoming the most prominent EU leader to push for British voters to have an opportunity to think again.  View Article
Financial Times: Do not assume the EU will give the UK time to rerun Brexit vote
The bloc has good reasons not to extend the March 29 deadline for withdrawal, writes Wolfgang Münchau.  View Article
The Independent: Brexit deal likely to slip to December, says EU commissioner
Ireland’s EU Commissioner has said a summit to finalise a Brexit deal is now unlikely to be held until December, pointing to further slipping in the negotiating timetable.  View Article
POLITICO: Jeremy Corbyn: ‘We can’t stop Brexit’
The Labour leader told Der Spiegel it was important to understand why people voted to leave the European Union.  View Article
Bloomberg: Brexit is pushing more settlement business toward Brussels
Euronext NV, the owner of Ireland’s stock exchange, favors moving the settlement of Irish shares to Brussels after Brexit, according to briefings to industry.  View Article
Bloomberg: Germany and Ireland top the pile mopping up Brexit bank business
As many as 50 lenders are applying for licenses that will allow them to continue doing business in the European Union after Britain quits the bloc, according to German banking watchdog BaFin.  View Article
Bloomberg: BofA has spent $400 million preparing for hard Brexit, CEO says
The lender’s preparations include establishing a hub in Dublin and a broker-dealer in Paris, moving staff, creating legal entities and redoing contracts so that it’s ready to operate when the UK departs the European Union in March.  View Article
Bloomberg: JPMorgan leads $283 billion Brexit shift to Frankfurt
The major US investment banks are planning to shift about 250 billion euros of balance-sheet assets to Frankfurt because of Brexit, several people briefed on the matter said.  View Article
Financial Times: IMF warns no-deal Brexit would cause ‘widespread disruptions
The IMF came to the aid of Theresa May as she tried to build momentum behind her Brexit deal, warning that if the UK left without an agreement it would be hit by “widespread disruptions” to goods and services.  View Article
Financial Times: UK economy grows at fastest rate since 2016
The UK economy accelerated to its fastest quarterly growth rate in almost two years over the summer but economists warned that with Brexit uncertainties curbing spending, the performance would soon decline.  View Article
Bloomberg: Brexit impacts UK job market as EU workers fall by record
The number of European Union workers in the UK fell by the most on record, intensifying labor shortages as Britain prepares to leave the bloc next year.  View Article
Bloomberg: UK small firms not prepared for big pound slump after Brexit
More than a third of UK’s small- and medium-sized businesses see the pound dropping at least 10% after Brexit, but almost none of them are preparing for it.  View Article
Financial Times: Only ‘preliminary’ analysis done on post-Brexit US trade deal
Britain’s Department for International Trade has admitted that it has only carried out “preliminary” modelling into a potential US-UK post-Brexit trade deal — and has refused to make the information public.  View Article
Financial Times: Trade partners attack EU plan for post-Brexit import quotas
A group of countries including the US, Brazil and China has objected to EU plans for splitting up sensitive import quotas with Britain after Brexit, in the latest sign of how big trading powers are stepping up their demands about how the UK’s departure should be handled.  View Article
Institute for Government: UK must say who will play the role of the European Commission after Brexit
The Government must explain who will take over from Brussels officials in ensuring British ministers and legislators meet their agreed obligations to the EU after Brexit, demands a new report by the Institute for Government.  View Article
Ship inspections: preparing for Brexit
Member states' ambassadors gave the presidency a mandate to negotiate with the European Parliament an amendment to rules on the assessment of ship inspection organisations, with the aim of ensuring legal certainty and securing business continuity when the United Kingdom leaves the EU.  View Article
 

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