LEI Regulatory Oversight Committee Says its Size is Slowing Short-Term Progress

The Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC) of the Global Legal Entity Identifier System has missed the end of June deadline it set itself to provide details on the endorsement of pre-Local Operating Units (LOUs) saying that the size of the Committee has slowed down the finalisation and publication of the relevant documents.

The ROC’s second plenary meeting was held in Mexico City on 11/12 June 2013 by the Bank of Mexico and included 46 authorities from around the world that are interested in the development of the LEI system. Following the meeting, the ROC published a progress note on 19 June – you can read more here – covering many aspects of the development and including a note on pre-LOUs and pre-LEIs. This stated:

“At its first plenary meeting in January, the ROC agreed to establish an interim ‘pre-LEI system’ for global acceptance of ‘pre-LEIs’ that meet global standards and following the subsequent definition of these global standards, the ROC agreed in Mexico City on a process for ROC endorsement and global acceptance of pre-LEIs and pre-LOUs. The process for the endorsement of pre-LEIs requires submission by a sponsoring authority to the ROC of information that demonstrates that the pre-LOU meets a set of minimum global standards, followed by examination and endorsement by the ROC.

“Before the end of June, the ROC will release a step-by-step description of the procedure necessary for ROC endorsement and the guidelines to facilitate the implementation of the global standards for pre-LEIs. This information will provide the necessary clarity and guidance for those entities and possible sponsors which are envisaging to become or are already involved in the issuance of pre-LEIs. In addition to supporting an interim system, these steps will facilitate seamless transition of the global system by the Central Operating Unit, once it is established by the foundation.”

While pre-LOUs and potential pre-LOUs wait for details of the procedures they must follow to achieve ROC endorsement, and the market at large seeks greater clarity on how exactly the LEI system will work, the ROC chair and vice chairs explain: “The LEI ROC had a productive meeting in Mexico City where many important issues were resolved and agreed by the Committee. Finalisation of the resulting documents in publishable form has taken a bit more time than originally expected due to the size of the committee and the wish to offer to all members coming from diverse geographic regions the possibility to  provide input. The LEI ROC is working hard to complete the documents and will publish them on www.leiroc.org as soon as possible.”