One of the organs of the European Union is trying to persuade the rest to delay the the date of application for the Regulation on Key Information Documents for Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs) until 1st January 2018.

The European Commission, the nearest thing that the EU has to an executive branch, is proposing the one-year extension "in the interest of ensuring a smooth implementation for European consumers and to ensure legal certainty for the sector."

This is because the EU's parliament voted overwhelmingly against the existing proposals because it thought that customers would find the new rules misleading. A re-drafting is now in order.

Eversheds reports that a parliamentary committee criticised the old PRIIPs standards for being unclear in respect of multi-option products, especially with regard to the explicit exemption granted to Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities or UCITS; bad methods for calculating future performance scenarios; sketchy guidance for 'comprehension alerts'; and for having other misleading features. The law firm is treating the commission's proposal as a hard-and-fast sign that the delay will definitely go ahead.