On 29 April 2024, the House of Lords’ International Agreements Committee issued its 9th Report, which considers the UK-Switzerland Agreement on the Mutual Recognition of Financial Services.
The Agreement, which was signed on 21 December 2023 and laid before Parliament on 13 March 2024, aims to facilitate cross-border trade in wholesale financial services. This is achieved by each country recognising the regulatory and supervisory regimes of the other as achieving equivalent outcomes to their own. The Agreement establishes structures for regulatory cooperation, consolidates existing access allowed under current domestic legislation, and in some sectors creates additional market access by ‘deferring’ to the rules of the other country, to ease cross-border trade. The Committee notes that this creates particular benefits for the UK insurance sector.
The Committee also concludes that the Agreement contains novel and ambitious commitments, representing a ‘new approach to trade in who
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