French Monetary and Financial Code
In forceThe following may provide investment services within the limits of the legislative provisions which, where applicable, govern them, without being subject to the authorisation procedure provided for in Article L. 532-1 but without being able to claim the benefit of the provisions of Articles L. 532-16 to L. 532-27:
1° a) The French State, the Caisse de la dette publique and the Caisse d'amortissement de la dette sociale ;
b) The Banque de France ;
c) The Institut d'émission des départements d'outre-mer and the Institut d'émission d'outre-mer :
2° a) Insurance and reinsurance undertakings governed by the Insurance Code;
b) The collective investment schemes mentioned in I of Article L. 214-1 and their portfolio management companies;
c) The supplementary occupational pension funds referred to in article L. 381-1 of the French Insurance Code, the occupational pension institutions referred to in article L. 370-1 of the same code for their operations referred to in article L. 370-2 of the same code, as well as the legal entities administering an occupational pension institution referred to in article 8 of order no. 2006-344 of 23 March 2006 relating to supplementary occupational pensions;
d) Persons who provide investment services only to the legal persons that control them, to those that the latter control, and to those that they control themselves, with the exception of cases where the investment services are provided on behalf of collective investments managed by a portfolio management company that is part of the same group. For the purposes of this d, the concept of control is understood to mean direct or indirect control within the meaning of Article L. 233-3 of the Commercial Code and the concept of group is understood within the meaning of Article L. 233-17-2 of the same code;
e) Firms whose investment services are limited to the management of an employee savings scheme;
f) Firms whose activities are limited to those mentioned in d) and e) above;
(g) Persons who provide an investment service on an ancillary basis as part of a professional activity within the meaning of Article 4 of the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565, insofar as that activity is governed by legislative or regulatory provisions or by a code of conduct which do not exclude the provision of that service ;
(h) Participatory investment advisors, under the conditions and within the limits set out in Chapter VII of Title IV and providers of participatory finance services within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 under the conditions and within the limits applicable to their activity under that Regulation ;
i) Persons who do not provide any investment service other than dealing on own account in financial instruments other than commodity derivatives within the meaning of Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on markets in financial instruments, units mentioned in Article L. 229-7 of the Environmental Code or derivatives whose underlying assets are the latter. However, the following are not exempt under this heading:
- market makers ;
- members of a regulated market or a multilateral trading facility and persons who have direct electronic access to a trading platform, with the exception of non-financial entities that execute transactions on a trading platform whose contribution to the reduction of risks directly linked to their commercial activity or to the financing of their treasury or that of their groups within the meaning ofArticle L. 233-17-2 of the Commercial Code can be objectively measured;
- persons who use a high-frequency algorithmic trading technique;
- persons who trade on their own account when executing client orders;
- persons benefiting from an exemption under a, b and j are not required to meet the conditions set out in this i in order to benefit from the exemption;
j) Persons dealing on own account, including market makers, in commodity derivatives within the meaning of Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on markets in financial instruments, units referred to in Article L. 229-7 of the Environmental Code or derivatives whose underlying assets are the latter, or which provide investment services other than proprietary trading in respect of the same financial instruments to clients or suppliers of their main business, provided, in each of these cases, that these services, individually and in aggregate form, are ancillary, in accordance with criteria defined by decree, to their main business considered at group level within the meaning of Article L. 233-17-2 of the French Commercial Code, and that these persons are not part of a group whose principal activity consists in providing investment services or banking activities within the meaning of Annex I to Directive 2013/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013, or in acting as a market maker in relation to commodity derivatives.
However, the following are not exempt in this respect:
- persons who use a high-frequency algorithmic trading technique ;
- persons dealing on own account when executing client orders;
k) Financial investment advisers, subject to the conditions and limits set out in Chapter I of Title IV;
l) Persons providing investment advice in the course of another professional activity not governed by this Title, provided that the provision of such advice is not specifically remunerated;
m) The central depositories referred to in 2° and 3° of I of Article L. 441-1 of this Code, in the cases provided for in Article 73 of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on improving securities settlement in the European Union and on central securities depositories, and amending Directives 98/26/EC and 2014/65/EU and Regulation (EU) No 236/2012, and the central depositories referred to in 1° of I of Article L. 441-1 of this Code ;
n) Where they provide investment services relating to commodity derivatives, transmission system operators carrying out the tasks incumbent upon them pursuant to Articles L. 321-6 to L. 321-17 or L. 431-3 to L. 431-6 of the Energy Code, Regulations (EC) no. 714/2009 and no. 715/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on conditions for access to the network for cross-border exchanges in electricity and to the natural gas transmission networks, network codes or guidelines adopted in application of these texts, persons acting as service providers on behalf of network operators to carry out the tasks referred to in this n and operators or administrators of an energy balancing mechanism, a pipeline network or a system for balancing energy supply and demand when they carry out such tasks;
However, this exemption from authorisation does not apply to the operation of a secondary market, including a platform for secondary trading in transmission rights;
o) Persons covered by Article L. 229-5 of the Environmental Code who, when trading the units referred to in Article L. 229-7 of the same code, do not execute orders on behalf of clients and do not provide any investment services other than proprietary trading, provided that these persons do not use a high-frequency algorithmic trading technique.
For the purposes of this article, a market maker is a person who is present on a continuous basis on the financial markets to trade on his own account and who buys and sells financial instruments by committing his own capital, at prices set by him.
The subsidiaries referred to in article L. 511-47 may not benefit from the exemption from authorisation provided for in this article.
