Ireland: Compliance

The European Union has modernized its consumer financial services framework through new rules for distance contracts, fundamentally reshaping how financial institutions must interact with consumers in digital environments.

The Central Bank of Ireland has published draft guidance proposing enhanced weekly liquid asset requirements for money market funds, aligning with European Commission recommendations to strengthen market resilience during liquidity stress events.

The EU's new withdrawal button requirement will fundamentally reshape how online traders interact with consumers across member states. From June 2026, businesses offering digital contracts must implement a two-step withdrawal function that allows consumers to exercise their 14-day cooling-off period with unprecedented ease. What technical, operational, and legal changes must traders implement to meet these obligations, and what are the consequences of non-compliance?

Ireland is raising the financial thresholds for mandatory merger control notifications from July 2026, increasing the combined Irish turnover requirement from €60 million to €100 million and the individual turnover threshold from €10 million to €15 million. This change follows recommendations from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and a public consultation process, with significant implications for transaction notification requirements and regulatory oversight.

Ireland's EU Council Presidency has unveiled an ambitious programme centred on three interconnected priorities: competitiveness, values, and security. The agenda spans critical legislative files across financial services, technology, energy, and industrial policy, while positioning simplification and resilience as cross-cutting themes that will shape policy choices across all Council formations.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has announced significant changes to Ireland's merger control financial thresholds, effective 1 July 2026.

Dr Barry Scannell and tech entrepreneur Sean Blanchfield explore the transformative shift from AI copilots to autonomous agentic AI systems that are already functioning as digital workers within organisations. The discussion delves into how these AI agents are reviewing contracts, monitoring compliance, managing projects, and writing software, while examining the critical implications for governance, security, data protection, and the future of professional work.

The Central Bank of Ireland has published findings from its thematic assessment of MiFID Investment Firms' compliance functions, identifying critical weaknesses in succession planning, training programmes, monitoring effectiveness, and board documentation. Firms must now conduct comprehensive self-assessments against Article 22 of the MiFID II Delegated Regulation and ESMA Guidelines, addressing any gaps through proactive remediation while ensuring their compliance functions support consumer protection stan

The EU Listing Act introduces significant reforms to the Market Abuse Regulation, fundamentally changing how issuers assess disclosure obligations for protracted processes and delayed announcements. These changes, effective from June 2026, shift the analytical framework from intermediate step disclosure to final event triggers, while introducing a revised test for delaying disclosure that replaces the previous "not misleading" standard with an objective benchmark linked to prior public communications.