There are separate third country regimes for different types of financial services activity, though not all activities covered by passporting have a third country regime available for them. Usually, where they are available, it is on the condition that the EU authorities must first determine that the legal and regulatory system in the third country is equivalent to that in the EU – or a similar test that involves a comparison of the protections offered by the respective systems.

The workstream was chaired by Rachel Kent of Hogan Lovells and published its report on the EU Third Country Regime in January 2017 –

The key objectives of this workstream were to provide a comprehensive analysis of the EU’s third country regime looking at all pieces of relevant financial services legislation, setting out what the different equivalence provisions look like and to consider the UK’s future third country regime. 

There are separate third country regimes for different types of financial services activity, though not all activities covered by passporting have a third country regime available for them. Usually, where they are available, it is on the condition that the EU authorities must first determine that the legal and regulatory system in the third country is equivalent to that in the EU – or a similar test that involves a comparison of the protections offered by the respective systems.

The workstream was chaired by Rachel Kent of Hogan Lovells and published its report on the EU Third Country Regime in January 2017 – see here.