Exclusive - North American, UK, Asian regulators press EU on data privacy exemption

FILE PHOTO - Andrea Jelinek, the head of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), a new European body created to enforce the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), gives a news conference on the day the European data privacy regulation enters into force, in Brussels, Belgium, May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Financial watchdogs from North America, Britain and Asia are urgently seeking a formal exemption from the European Union’s tough new data privacy law to avoid hampering cross-border investigations, regulatory officials told Reuters.

Failure by the EU to explicitly exempt markets regulators from the bloc's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) could jeopardize international probes and enforcement actions in cases involving market manipulation and fraud, the officials warned.