Directive No 2014/59/EU of 15 May 2014 , known as the BRRD, establishes a European framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms.

It was transposed into French law under Ordinance No 2015-1024 of 20 August 2015, and supplements the framework created by Law No 2013-672 of 26 July 2013 on the separation and regulation of banking activities. The latter had already put in place some elements of the BRRD by introducing a French bank resolution scheme, and entrusting its implementation to the ACPR which set up a resolution college.

The Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), the second pillar of the Banking Union, was defined in 2014 under Regulation No 806/2014, which establishes uniform rules and a uniform procedure for the resolution of credit institutions and certain investment firms in the framework of a Single Resolution Mechanism and a Single Resolution Fund. Under the SRM, responsibilities for resolution are split between:

• the Single Resolution Board (SRB) located in Brussels, and
• the national resolution authorities (NRAs) of participating Member States.

The SRB is responsible for:

• credit institutions that are considered significant and those directly supervised by the ECB;
• cross-border groups;
• investment firms that are subsidiaries of a credit institution falling within the SRB's remit.

The ACPR has exclusive responsibility for certain entities: credit institutions considered less significant (not supervised by the ECB), nearly all investment firms, branches of third-country banks, and the banking systems in Monaco and in the French overseas territories. With regard to these entities, the ACPR is charged with the following duties:

• preparing resolution plans;
• assessing the resolvability of an entity;
• taking decisions aimed at reducing or removing obstacles to the implementation of resolution measures;
• determining whether an entity is failing or likely to fail;
• implementing resolution measures.