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European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority

2109

Q&A

Question ID: 2109

Regulation Reference: (EU) No 2009/138 - Solvency II Directive (Insurance and Reinsurance)

Topic: Scope of group

Article: 216, 262

Status: Final

Date of submission: 11 Feb 2020

Question

According to COM(2018) 169, "Article 215(1) of Solvency II establishes a general rule whereby the system of group supervision at Union level is based on the ultimate parent undertaking. However, by way of derogation from this rule, Article 216(1) provides that Member States may allow their supervisory authorities to decide, after consulting the group supervisor and the ultimate parent undertaking at Union level, to subject the ultimate parent insurance or reinsurance undertaking, insurance holding company or mixed financial holding company at national level to group supervision. This is known as sub-group supervision. According to EIOPA’s data, three EU supervisors conduct sub-group supervision on eight cross-border groups." Is additional information available on (a) which EU supervisors conduct sub-group supervision, and (b) why sub-group supervision is considered to be necessary (that is, are these all groups in which the ultimate parent undertaking is in a non-equivalent third country, or are there other reasons)?

Background of the question

In the United States, there is currently discussion of requiring U.S.-operations of EU-based groups to be subject to U.S.-based group capital requirements. EU-based groups such as Aegon N.V. want to avoid this. Accordingly it would be helpful to understand the extent to which groups based outside of the EU are subject to group-wide supervision at the sub-group level within the EU.

EIOPA answer

The Q&A on regulation tool cannot provide advice on individual cases, nor any comparison to other regulatory regimes. An early engagement with the relevant National Competent Authority is encouraged to discuss your concerns regarding the scope and application of group supervision.

In relation to the application of sub-group supervision, Article 358 of the Delegated Regulation provides the circumstances for the application of national or regional subgroup supervision. The decision to exercise group supervision on a sub-group is a decision made by the relevant NCAs, and the regulatory framework provides clear criteria on when such a decision should be taken.

According to the transparency and accountability disclosures, the supervisory authorities disclose aggregated statistical data that could support your query (Article 316(1) of the Delegated Regulation and Annex XXI points 26 and 27.