A key part of the legislation aimed at overhauling Europe’s securities market, due be published this week, has fallen prey to a last-minute delay because of a legal review process that has already pushed back deadlines for other central pieces of regulation.

The European Securities and Markets Authority sent a letter to the European Commission dated June 17 and published on its website yesterday, informing it that the regulator's planned delivery of draft technical standards for the Central Securities Depository Regulation, which it had been due to deliver yesterday, had been delayed until September.