Our Secondary Markets Expert Group contributed to our response to the European Commission's request for feedback on its draft legislative proposal bringing technical adjustments to MiFID II, in order to promote the use of SME growth markets.
Although we support the European Commission’s overarching objective to develop a more conducive regulatory framework that supports and incentivises small and medium-sized enterprises to use public markets to access capital, we did not support the proposal to require SME growth market operators to impose minimum free float requirements on issuers seeking admission to trade their shares on its venue will dissuade smaller companies from using public equity markets to secure new capital.
We advised the European Commission to amend the draft legislative proposal and provide each individual SME growth market operator the flexibility to determine whether such an approach is appropriate for their market.
