FIA submitted its response to HM Treasury’s Fair and Effective Markets Review Recommendations on Benchmarks, with proposals on seven benchmarks including the LBMA gold and silver fixes and ICE Brent Futures. Among other issues, FIA is concerned that acting unilaterally in the UK risks a fragmentation of liquidity and market disruption and could result in an uneven playing field across Europe. With regard to the specific products highlighted in HM Treasury’s recommendations, FIA feels that ICE Brent Futures does not meet the criterion of “benchmarks that are based on transactions in financial instruments which are not covered comprehensively by existing market abuse regulation.”
