Member Article

By Ordinance dated April 1^ston emergency measures relating to staff representative bodies (“IRP”), the Government had provided for the possibility for companies to hold meetings with their IRP via videoconference or conference call but also by instant messaging app if the two first means cannot be used.

By Decree published on April 10^th, 2020, the Government provided clarifications on how to use conference calls and instant messaging.

This Decree is available on the following website: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000041794077&dateTexte=&categorieLien=id

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) believes that insurance companies should currently focus their efforts on monitoring and assessing the impact of the situation caused by the health crisis and ensuring their operational continuity. On 20 March this year, the EIOPA issued three recommendations concerning a relaxation of the dates for submitting European prudential reporting statements and publications intended for the public (EIOPA-BoS-20/236, 20 March 2020).

In a press release on 26 March 2020, the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) announced that it intends to fully implement the recommendations published by the EIOPA and specified the terms and conditions.

In essence, the ACPR is providing additional time:

• of one week for the transmission of information to the competent authorities for the first quarter of 2020 ;
• of eight weeks, save in exceptional cases, for the collection of quantitative data on a company or consolidated basis, as at 31 December 2019 ;
• of eight weeks for the collection of the Regular Report to the Supervisor (RRS-RSR) and the Solvency and Financial Situation Report (RSSF-SFCR) ;
• of eight weeks for the collection of the Solvency and Financial Situation Report (RSSF-SFCR) with the exception of a series of major reports whose submission is delayed by only two weeks.
  
  

In addition to EIOPA’s recommendations, ACPR has decided to also make the submission dates for the complementary national requirements more flexible. Two sets of reporting requirements are targeted here:

• specific national states which are granted an additional period of eight weeks ;
• and a series of narrative reports which benefit from an additional eight weeks or “the foreseeable extension of the deadline for holding a general meeting”, as the case may be.
  
  

The ACPR press release is accompanied by a table that summarizes the new deadlines that must be met by insurers, noting that insurers are encouraged by the regulator to submit their collections at any time prior to the shortest deadline mentioned in the table and within the usual timeframes.

In addition, ACPR is also expanding the scope of EIOPA’s recommendations by extending the reporting date for escheat and outstanding duty reports to June 30, 2020.

Finally, with respect to the terms and conditions of these remittances, the ACPR clarifies that, in exceptional circumstances, those that are not electronically signed or that are not signed in a compliant manner may be temporarily accepted.

These relaxations in the current context can only be welcomed as they will allow insurance undertakings to focus on the continuity of their business even though the majority of them are currently operating in a degraded manner.

With respect to the banking sector, ACPR has already announced that similar measures relating to reporting statements will be forthcoming.