The shift in contracts from London to New York earlier this year showed how the transatlantic Intercontinental Exchange (ICE.N) could respond rapidly to Brexit if need be, the bourse’s European head said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
ICE moved 245 derivatives contracts on North American oil and gas liquids to satisfy U.S. customers who did not want to comply with MiFID II, a sweeping European Union reform of securities markets that came into force in January.
“We don’t have any immediate plans for further contracts to move,” Stuart Williams, president of ICE Futures Europe, told Reuters.
“But if our customers, for whatever reason, be it MiFID, Brexit or some other future change, would like contracts to trade in other jurisdictions, then we have the ability to respond to that.”
ICE, which owns the New York Stock Exchange and long seen by the financial markets as a potential buyer of rival London Stock Exchange (LSE.L), has not announced any structural changes in UK operations ahead of Britain’s departure from the bloc in March next year.
Williams said he was encouraged that a transition deal to December 2020 has been agreed by Britain and the EU, even though it is part of a divorce settlement that has yet to be finalised.
“It speaks to the intent from both sides that we need an orderly period during which people can make sensible, strategic decisions, rather than risk-based, worst-case decisions about where they want to do business,” Williams said.
ICE Futures Europe has submitted its Brexit contingency plan to Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, like all other market infrastructure firms.
“From our perspective, we operate infrastructure in continental Europe as well. We would like to see a competitive EU27. We think global markets are best served by the relevant jurisdictions remaining open,” he added.
ICE has a small trading operation and a clearing house in Amsterdam, though the Dutch trades are cleared in London.