MIFID - Article 3 - Optional exemptions

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Article 3

Optional exemptions

1. Member States may choose not to apply this Directive to any persons for which they are the home Member State that:

— are not allowed to hold clients' funds or securities and which for that reason are not allowed at any time to place themselves in debit with their clients, and

— are not allowed to provide any investment service except the reception and transmission of orders in transferable securities and units in collective investment undertakings and the provision of investment advice in relation to such financial instruments, and

— in the course of providing that service, are allowed to transmit orders only to:

(i) investment firms authorised in accordance with this Directive;

(ii) credit institutions authorised in accordance with Directive 2000/12/EC;

(iii) branches of investment firms or of credit institutions which are authorised in a third country and which are subject to and comply with prudential rules considered by the competent authorities to be at least as stringent as those laid down in this Directive, in
Directive 2000/12/EC or in Directive 93/6/EEC;

(iv) collective investment undertakings authorised under the law of a Member State to market units to the public and to the managers of such undertakings;

(v) investment companies with fixed capital, as defined in Article 15(4) of Second Council Directive 77/91/EEC of 13 December 1976 on coordination of safeguards
which, for the protection of the interests of members and others, are required by Member States of companies within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 58 of the Treaty, in respect of the formation of public limited liability companies and the maintenance and alteration of their capital, with a view to making such safeguards equivalent (1), the securities of which are listed or dealt in on a regulated market in a
Member State; provided that the activities of those persons are regulated at
national level.

2. Persons excluded from the scope of this Directive according to paragraph 1 cannot benefit from the freedom to provide services and/or activities or to establish branches as provided for in Articles 31 and 32 respectively.