Irish Stock Exchange Establishes Supervisory Authority

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

06 August 2008

Deirdre Somers, Chief Executive of the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) has announced that, following an organisational review, the ISE is to establish a new supervisory entity, and has appointed a senior figure from the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA), Mike Duignan, to lead the change.

Commenting on the move, announced by the ISE last month, Somers explained that three clear priorities emerged from the organisational review.

"Our structure needs to provide total clarity and delineation between our supervisory roles and the broader promotion and management of the ISE. We need to reflect emerging international best practice in securities regulation. We must also maintain market expertise and experience - this is essential to ensuring market confidence, appropriate supervision and competitiveness. We believe that embedding these priorities will cement and strengthen the reputation of the ISE and its markets, domestically and internationally," she observed.

The ISE's fundamental objective, according to Somers, is to create a separate supervisory entity, with independent governance arrangements.

Somers continued: “I am delighted to announce that Mike Duignan, a highly experienced UK financial services regulator, will join the ISE in September. Mike has an enormous depth of experience in the European securities regulatory landscape and will bring a wealth of expertise to the ISE. Mike will lead the change, including the development of separate governance structures and head up the new arrangements.”

A career regulator, in his current role, Duignan is responsible for the FSA’s largest market abuse investigation team and for policy in that area. In his previous role as head of primary markets policy, he chaired the key EU regulatory committee (The Committee of European Securities Regulators) which established EU-wide rules for prospectus disclosure. At the European Council, he led the UK team on the Prospectus and Transparency Directives.

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