Impact of Brexit
On the night of Brexit, Christoph Hock and some of his
traders of the team arrived at the Union Investment offices in Frankfurt at 1.30AM UK time. As the votes came
in, Union Investment’s traders were already active in
the market. As the night’s results turned in favour of
a result that few had predicted even hours earlier, it
became clear that something momentous was taking
place: the UK had voted to leave the EU.
“I would have preferred there was no Brexit, which will
cause lots of additional uncertainty in the months to
come,” said Hock.
One of the questions arising from the UK referendum
is the impact on MiFID II. After more than six years of
development, the regulation now faces a less certain
future, especially in the UK – but the impact may not
end there. Hock points out that the UK’s FCA had a
major impact on the drafting of MiFID II, particularly in
areas such as payment for research, where the continental regulators such as France’s AMF have a very
different perspective. Now that the UK is no longer
part of the EU’s future, it remains to be seen whether
these controversial parts of MiFID II might be amended – although at present, there is no formal indication
that this will be the case. Until the UK invokes Article
50, formally exiting the European Union, much remains
uncertain, both in the UK and beyond it.
Christoph Hock, Head of Multi-Asset Trading, Union Investment
Christoph Hock is Head of Multi-Asset Trading at Union Investment. He joined Union in April 2014 and, with his team, is responsible for
all trading activities asso