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.