On 7 April 2026, the Dutch Minister of Finance submitted a further report regarding the proposed amendment to the Dutch Financial Supervision Act (Wet op het financieel toezicht, AFS) implementing the amended Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR).
The Dutch government failed to meet the implementation deadline for the review, which was 29 September 2025. In this update, the Minister addresses the consequences of the delay. The key impacts include:
- The MiFID II review strengthens rules on mechanisms to limit excessive volatility on financial markets, including a new power for market operators to temporarily halt or restrict trading in emergency situations. Until this is implemented, Dutch market operators lack this specific emergency halt power. The Minister does note that existing powers already allow market operators to halt trading in cases of significant short-term price movements, and that the AFM can already instruct trading platforms to suspend trading to protect investors or ensure orderly trading. In practice, emergency situations will often involve significant price movements, so most scenarios are already covered.
- The MiFID II review introduces an obligation for trading platforms dealing in emission allowances to apply position management controls. There is no legal requirement to do so until this is implemented. Nevertheless, according to the Minister, the only Dutch platform trading these derivatives in any significant volumes already applies such controls in practice.
- Relevant market participants cannot yet comply with MiFID II’s consolidated tape provisions, but this has no practical impact since no consolidated tape is currently operational in the EU.
- Certain light reporting obligations (e.g. periodic reports on client order execution) that MiFID II removes are still technically in force, but the associated compliance costs are considered limited.
- The delay also means the AFM cannot yet impose administrative fines or penalties for infringements of the new MiFIR provisions. The relevant legislative instruments will be amended to grant the AFM the necessary enforcement powers.
The Minister also used the occasion to introduce a new obligation for investment firms operating an multi-lateral trading facility registered as an SME growth market to ensure continued compliance with the registration requirement and to grant the AFM enforcement powers for breaches of this new obligation.
The full report is available here (Dutch only).