Financial Markets Conduct (Climate-related Disclosures - Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A) Exemption Notice 2024

The Financial Markets Conduct (Climate-related Disclosures – Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A) Exemption Notice 2024 (Notice) exempts Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A (Rabobank) from its obligations under section 461ZB(3)(a) of the Financial Markets Conduct Act (the Act) to the extent that the section requires Rabobank to include in its climate statement, climate reporting for the DLL Companies.

The Notice comes into force on 2 December 2024.

The exemption is subject to the conditions that Rabobank notify the Registrar that it is relying on the exemption, that Rabobank notify the FMA as soon as practicable of any changes to the nature or assets of the DLL companies which would mean that they have a material level of external primary users, and that Rabobank notify the FMA as soon as practicable of any changes to the ownership structure of the DLL companies. 

The exemption was granted on the basis that­­—

• the DLL companies are not directly held by Rabobank, but through intermediate companies. It is likely to be administratively burdensome for Rabobank to obtain and verify the necessary information;
• the DLL companies only material primary users are Rabobank itself and related entities. Minor primary users are unlikely to use climate information to assess their engagement with the DLL companies. Preparing climate statements therefore causes unnecessary compliance costs and is of little benefit; and
• alternative climate reporting on the DLL companies under a European Union directive will shortly be available.

As such the FMA is satisfied that the granting of the exemption is desirable in order to promote the purposes of the Act, specifically—

• by promoting innovation and flexibility in the financial markets by recognising that corporate groups use different structures and group members are not necessarily linked to the extent that preparing consolidated reporting is desirable; and
• by avoiding unnecessary compliance costs where the value of the information is disproportionately outweighed by the time and resources required to extract information from the DLL Companies, given the lack of material external primary users.

The FMA is further satisfied the exemption is not broader than is reasonably necessary to address the matters that give rise to the exemption as—

• the need for disclosing information about the DLL Companies in accordance with the climate-related disclosure framework does not arise because the DLL Companies do not have any material external primary users for which climate statements are intended to be prepared; and
• the DLL Companies would largely be excluded from CRUA’s group climate statements anyway, on the basis that the information is immaterial, particularly given the DLL Companies have immaterial operations in New Zealand.

Download Financial Markets Conduct (Climate-related Disclosures - Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A) Exemption Notice 2024 [PDF 255KB]