GERMAN LEGISLATION REMOVES UK INSURER PASSPORTING RIGHTS

Following the UK’s departure from the European Union and the end of the Brexit transition period, German financial services regulator Bafin has published legislation that removes passporting rights from UK-based insurers. The General Administrative Act states that insurance undertakings with their registered office in the UK and Gibraltar will lose their European passporting rights on January 1, 2021. As a consequence, UK insurers will no longer be permitted to carry out cross-border activities in Germany, it said. “As the EU and the UK have not concluded a comprehensive trade agreement for the area of insurance supervision, Solvency II insurance undertakings will no longer be authorised to operate EU-wide,” Bafin said in a statement. The Act also addressed the impact of Brexit on existing contractual obligations for insurance undertakings. The UK insurance industry has long assumed it would lose passporting rights after Brexit.