Directive on cross-border mergers in banking, insurance and securities adopted in first reading

The text adopted includes the following provisions, among others:

1. where the European Commission (“Commission”) proposed that supervisory authorities decide within 30 working days of being notified of a proposed acquisition, the new text sets the limit at 60 working days; 
2. 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); 
3. it is made clear that Member States may not impose more stringent requirements than those set out in the directives as amended.