The definition of a financial institution in the Commission's proposal covers a wide range of institutions in order to avoid circumvention of the tax and includes essentially investment firms, organised markets, credit institutions, insurance companies, collective investment undertakings and their managers, alternative investment funds (such as hedge funds), financial leasing companies and special purpose entities.

4. If the acquirer of any holding referred to in paragraph 3 is an investment firm, a credit institution, an insurance undertaking or a UCITS management company authorised in another Member State, or the parent undertaking of an investment firm, credit institution, insurance undertaking or a UCITS management company authorised in another Member State, or a person controlling an investment firm, credit institution, insurance undertaking or a UCITS management company authorised in another Member State, and if, as a result of that acquisition, the undertaking would become the acquirer's subsidiary or come under his control, the assessment o ...[+++]f the acquisition shall be subject to the prior consultation provided for in Article 60.

As an alternative to the deduction of the items referred to in (a) and (b) of the fourth subparagraph which the insurance undertaking holds in credit institutions, investment firms and financial institutions, Member States may allow their insurance undertakings to apply mutatis mutandis methods 1, 2, or 3 of Annex I to Directive 2002/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate(22) ...[+++].

As an alternative to the deduction of the items referred to in (a) and (b) of the third subparagraph which the insurance undertaking holds in credit institutions, investment firms and financial institutions, Member States may allow their insurance undertakings to apply mutatis mutandis methods 1, 2, or 3 of Annex I to Directive 2002/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate(28).

(1) The current Community legislation provides for a comprehensive set of rules on the prudential supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms on a stand alone basis and credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms which are part of respectively a banking/investment firm group or an insurance group, i.e. groups with homogeneous financial activities.

However, certain additional provisions were considered appropriate to reinforce supervisors' ability to monitor the entities coming within their supervisory remit, i.e.: (1) the addition to the list of authorization conditions of a further condition under which any group of which the credit institution, insurance undertaking or investment firm is a member must be transparent i.e. must be such as to permit effective supervision of the ...[+++]entity on an individual basis; (2) an additional requirement whereby credit institutions and insurance undertakings must maintain their head offices in the same Member States as the registered office as otherwise effective supervision by the home Member State competent authorities would be made more difficult (this has already been laid down for investment firms); (3) a widening of the list of bodies with whom confidential supervisory information can be exchanged by the competent authorities; (4) the imposition on auditors of an obligation to report to the competent authority where in the carrying out of their function asstatutory auditors of the financial undertaking concerned irregular circumstances become known to them which might be detrimental either to the customers of the institution, to the financial system or to the soundness of the financial undertaking itself.