[author: Rebecca Grevitt]

On September 14, 2016, the European Parliament announced its decision to reject the European Commission’s proposed Delegated Regulation supplementing the Regulation on key information documents (KIDs) for packaged retail and insurance based products (PRIIPs) (Regulation 1286/2014) (PRIIPs KID Regulation). The text of the legislative resolution rejecting the proposed Delegated Regulation sets out a number of reasons why the Parliament decided to reject the Delegated Regulation, including:

• The need for detailed guidance on the “comprehension alert” without which there is a risk of inconsistent implementation of this component in the KIDs within the single market;
• The need for clarification surrounding the treatment of multi-option products; and
• The risk that the rules within the Delegated Regulation are contrary to the purpose of the legislation which is to provide retail investors clear, comparable, non-misleading and understandable information on PRIIPs.

As well as calling on the Commission to submit a new delegated regulation, the European Parliament also calls on the Commission to postpone the application date of the PRIIPs KID Regulation, to ensure that the requirements in the Regulation and Delegated Regulation are implemented smoothly and avoid the application of level 1 without RTS being in force.