The issue of high-frequency trading – which has surged in Europe’s equity markets since Brussels enacted the markets in financial instruments directive in November 2007 – was conspicuous by its absence from the Committee of European Securities Regulators’ consultation documents on the directive.

HFT refers to both marketmaking activity - whereby firms quote buy and sell prices to promote liquidity - as well as statistical arbitragers, who seek to profit from price discrepancies across different platforms. The slew of trading platforms that Mifid established has allowed the activity to flourish.