On 13 December 2018, the European Commission adopted a Delegated Regulation that amends Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 as regards certain registration conditions to promote the use of SME growth markets for the purposes of MiFID II.

The adopted Delegated Regulation has three operational provisions:

• it replaces the current definition of a non-equity issuer set out in Article 77(2) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 with a new definition based on an issuance size criterion;
• it modifies Article 78(2)(g) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 by leaving the flexibility to SME growth market operators to impose a half yearly financial report on non-equity issuers (while keeping this obligation unchanged for equity issuers); and
• it introduces a new point (j) in Article 78(2) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 requiring listing rules of SME growth markets to impose a free float requirement for equity issuers when the shares are admitted to trading for the first time.

The adopted Delegated Regulation will now be considered by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.