1.Member States shall allow undertakings referred to in Title II which at the entry into force of the implementing measures to this Directive provide insurance in their territories in one or more of the classes referred to in Article 1 a period of five years, commencing with the date of notification of this Directive, in order to comply with the requirements of Articles 16 and 17.
2.Furthermore, Member States may:
allow any undertakings referred to in (1), which upon the expiry of the five-year period have not fully established the margin of solvency, a further period not exceeding two years in which to do so provided that such undertakings have, in accordance with Article 20, submitted for the approval of the supervisory authority the measures which they propose to take for such purpose;
exempt undertakings referred to in (1) whose annual premium or contribution income upon the expiry of the period of five years falls short of six times the amount of the minimum guarantee fund required under Article 17 (2) from the requirement to establish such minimum guarantee fund before the end of the financial year in respect of which the premium or contribution income is as much as six times such minimum guarantee fund. After considering the results of the examination provided for under Article 33, the Council shall unanimously decide, on a proposal from the Commission, when this exemption is to be abolished by Member States.
3.Undertakings desiring to extend their operations within the meaning of Article 8 (2) or Article 10 may not do so unless they comply immediately with the rules of this Directive. However, the undertakings referred to in paragraph (2) (b) which within the national territory extend their business to other classes of insurance or to other parts of such territory may be exempted for a period of ten years from the date of notification of the Directive from the requirement to constitute the minimum guarantee fund referred to in Article 17 (2).
4.An undertaking having a structure different from any of those listed in Article 8 may continue, for a period of three years from the notification of the Directive, to carry on their present business in the legal form in which they are constituted at the time of such notification. Undertakings set up in the United Kingdom ‘by Royal Charter’ or ‘by private Act’ or ‘by special public Act’ may continue to carry on their business in their present form for an unlimited period.
Undertakings in Belgium which, in accordance with their objects, carry on the business of intervention mortgage loans or savings operations in accordance with No 4 of Article 15 of the provisions relating to the supervision of private savings banks, coordinated by the ‘arrête royal’ of 23 June 1967, may continue to undertake such business for a period of three years from the date of notification of this Directive.
The Member States in question shall draw up a list of such undertakings and communicate it to the other Member States and the Commission.
5.At the request of undertakings which comply with the requirements of Articles 15, 16 and 17, Member States shall cease to apply restrictive measures such as those relating to mortgages, deposits and securities established under present regulations.