By Marcello Condemi
The outcome of the referendum question in which the majority of the population of the United Kingdom, on 23.6.2016, expressed their opinion against the UK remaining within the European Union (an event that would later be known as Brexit), has had extremely significant repercussions in many respects on the validity of the pre-existing rules contained in the legal systems of European states.
The world of finance and investment has not escaped this impact either, as the “Transition period”, ordered by the’Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community” and during which the «the United Kingdom and in the United Kingdom, normally with the same legal effect as in the Member States, Union law, including international agreements, in order to avoid disruption during the period of negotiation of the agreement or agreements on future relations»expired unsuccessfully on 31.12.2020, as the EU and the UK had failed to agree on a new shared regulatory framework by that date, ex multis, for the performance by UK-based companies of financial services in EU countries.
In spite of ongoing negotiations, however, and while waiting for the drafting (which never took place) of a new framework EU-UK, the Italian legislature, faced with the approaching end of the transition period, has provided, as a precautionary measure, for further, specific transitional measures, through Decree-Law No. 183 of 31 December 2020, in order to avoid disruption to the detriment of the Italian domestic financial market, by allowing investment firms based in the United Kingdom, by obtaining specific authorisations from the competent Supervisory Authority, to carry out their activities on Italian soil.
Published in “Banking Law” on 11 April 2022
