ESMA

ESMA Consultation on Consolidated Tape for Non Equity Products RTS Under MiFID II: Responses

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On December 8, 2016, ESMA published the responses it has received to its consultation on draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) specifying the scope of the consolidated tape for non‑equity financial instruments under Article 65(8)(c) of the MiFID II Directive (2014/65/EU).

Respondents include:

  • The Investment Association;
  • International Capital Market Association;
  • Wholesale Markets Brokers’ Association (WMBA)
  • Association française des investisseurs institutionnels; and
  • Deutsche Börse Group.

ESMA will use the feedback it receives to finalize the draft RTS, which will be submitted to the Commission for endorsement. The date of application of MiFID II Directive and MiFIR is January 3, 2018.

European Commission Adopts Delegated Regulation on RTS on Criteria for Establishing When an Activity Is Considered to Be Ancillary to the Main Business

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The European Commission adopted, on December 1, 2016, a Delegated Regulation supplementing the MiFID II Directive (2014/65/EU) in relation to regulatory technical standards (“RTS“) on the criteria for establishing when an activity is considered to be ancillary to a firm’s main business (C(2016) 7643 final).

The MiFID II Directive exempts persons dealing on their own account, or providing investment services to clients, in commodity derivatives and emission allowances, provided that activity is ancillary to their main business and their main business is not the provision of investment services or banking activities. Article 2(4) of the MiFID II Directive gives the Commission power to adopt RTS specifying the criteria for establishing when an activity is to be considered ancillary to the main business of a group.

ESMA submitted draft RTS to the Commission in September 2015. The Commission notified ESMA in April 2016 that it intended to endorse the draft RTS, subject to several amendments being made. In May 2016, ESMA submitted a formal opinion and a revised draft of the RTS to the Commission.

It is now for the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to consider the Delegated Regulation. Should neither of them object, it will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU (OJ) and will apply from January 3, 2018.

ESMA Issues Final Guidelines on Inside Information and Commodity Derivatives under MAR

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On September 30, 2016, the European Securities Markets Authority (“ESMA“) published final guidelines (ESMA/2016/1412) on information relating to commodity derivatives disclosable under the Market Abuse Regulation (Regulation 596/2014) (“MAR“).

Article 7(5) of MAR requires ESMA to issue guidelines to establish a non-exhaustive list of information that is reasonably expected or required to be disclosed in accordance with legal or regulatory provisions in EU or national law, market rules, contract, practice or custom, on the relevant commodity markets or spot markets.

ESMA expects market participants, investors and regulators to take the list of examples provided in the guidelines into account when assessing whether information is “inside” information. It should be noted that other conditions of the definition not covered by the new guidelines should also be taken into account.

ESMA also explains that the guidelines do not create any further information disclosure requirements, as the concept of “required to be disclosed” refers to existing or future disclosure requirements (such as, under national law), independent of the guidelines.

National competent authorities (“NCAs“) have two months from the issuance of the different language versions of the guidelines to confirm whether or not they intend to comply with them. If a NCA does not comply or does not intend to comply, it will have to inform ESMA, stating its reasons.

ESMA consulted on the guidelines in March 2016 (ESMA/2016/444).

ESMA Consults on SFT Regulation and Amendments to EMIR RTS

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On September 30, 2016, ESMA published a consultation paper (ESMA/2016/1409) on draft regulatory technical standards (“RTS“) and draft implementing technical standards (“ITS“) implementing the Regulation on reporting and transparency of securities financing transactions ((EU) 2015/2365) (the “SFT Regulation“).

The SFT Regulation will require market participants to report details of securities financing transactions (“SFTs“) to an approved EU trade repository (“TR“). The main issues addressed are:

  • RTS and ITS procedure and criteria for registration as a TR;
  • RTS and ITS on the use of internationally agreed reporting standards, the reporting logic and main aspects of the structure and content of SFT reports;
  • RTS requirements relating to transparency of data, data collection, aggregation and comparison; and
  • RTS on access levels for different competent authorities.

ESMA also proposes amendments to existing technical standards implementing requirements relating to TRs under the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (“EMIR“). ESMA states that the amendments are needed to ensure a level playing field for market participants in respect of registration and access rules. ESMA is consulting on the following:

  • consolidated amended text of RTS on registration of TRs under EMIR; and
  • amendments to RTS on access levels under EMIR.

The consultation will close on November 30, 2016. ESMA will use the feedback it receives to finalize its draft technical standards, which are to be submitted to the European Commission for endorsement by the end of Q1 or beginning of Q2 2017. It is expected that the finalized implementing measures will become applicable from 2018.

ESMA Updates Q&A on Application of UCITS Directive

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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published an updated version of its Q&A paper on the application of the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive (2009/65/EC) as most recently revised by UCITS V (2014/91/EU).  The purpose of the Q&A is to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the application of the UCITS and its implementing measures.  The most recent updates reflect a Q&A relating to the valuation of OTC derivatives and are highlighted in yellow in the paper.

The latest version of the Q&A is available here.

ESMA Consultation on Validation and Review of Credit Rating Agencies’ Methodologies

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On July 13, 2016 the European Securities and Markets Authority published a new consultation paper relating to Credit Rating Agency methodologies. This follows on from a discussion paper published on November 17, 2015 and an open hearing on January 25, 2016.

The consultation and review is based around CRA’s application of Articles 8(3) and 8(5) of the CRA regulation and articles 7 and 8 of the Regulatory Technical Standards. ESMA believes that publication of official guidelines will help to ensure the consistent application of validation and review measures for demonstrating the discriminatory power, predictive power and historical robustness of methodologies.

The consultation will be open for 5 weeks, and ESMA aims to finalize the proposed guidelines and publish a final report in Q1 2017.

ESMA Publishes Responses to its Discussion Paper on UCITS Share Classes

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The European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA“) has published the responses received to the Discussion Paper on UCITS share classes.

The UCITS Directive recognizes the possibility for UCITS to offer different share classes to investors but it does not prescribe whether, and to what extent, share classes of a given UCITS can differ from one another. ESMA has identified diverging national practices as to the types of share class that are permitted, ranging from very simple share classes (e.g. with different levels of fees) to much more sophisticated share classes (e.g. which may potentially have different investment strategies).

ESMA published the discussion paper on April 6, 2016. Respondents included the: Alternative Investment Management Association, European Fund and Asset Management Association and The Investment Association.

European Commission Adopts a Delegated Regulation on RTS Relating to Clearing Access in Respect of Trading Venues and Central Counterparties under MiFIR

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The European Commission has adopted a Delegated Regulation and annex supplementing the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (Regulation 600/2014) (“MiFIR“) with regard to regulatory technical standards (“RTS“) relating to clearing access in respect of trading venues and central counterparties (C(2016) 3807 final). The European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA“) submitted the draft RTS to the Commission in September 2015. The RTS cover transparency, micro-structural issues, data publication and access, requirements applying on and to trading venues, commodity derivatives, market data reporting, post-trading issues and best execution. The Delegated Regulation will now be considered by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament. If neither of them objects, it will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. The Delegated Regulation will apply from the application date of MiFIR (that is, January 3, 2018) with the exception of Articles 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20, which will apply from the date the Regulation enters into force.

ESMA Updates Document on Waivers from MiFID Pre-Trade Transparency Requirements

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On June 20, 2016, the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA“) published an updated version of the waiver document (ESMA/2011/241h) that sets out its assessment of applications for waivers from pre-trade transparency requirements under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (2004/39/EC) (“MiFID“).

The waiver document is aimed at competent authorities under MiFID to ensure that, in their supervisory activities, their actions converge with the opinions provided by ESMA. The examples are also intended to provide clarity for firms on the MiFID requirements for pre-trade transparency.

In the updated waiver document there is a new ESMA opinion relating to large-in-scale waivers. The new opinion, which is written in red, provides an example of functionalities that satisfy the MiFID criteria.

2015 Annual Reports

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The following bodies have released their 2015 annual reports in the past week:

  • EIOPA (European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority)
  • ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority)
  • EBA (European Banking Authority)

Each report contains a review of achievements from 2015 as well as looking forward to the objectives and challenges which will be relevant in the coming year.