Article 16(1) of the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) requires market operators and investment firms that operate a trading venue to establish and maintain effective arrangements, systems and procedures for preventing and detecting market abuse and attempted market abuse. It also imposes the obligation on market operators and investment firms that operate a trading venue to report suspicious transactions and orders to the Member State competent authority without delay.
Article 16(2) of MAR imposes obligations on persons professionally arranging or executing transactions to establish and maintain effective arrangements, systems and procedures to detect suspicious transactions and orders and to report them to Member State competent authorities without delay.
Article 16(5) of MAR requires the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to develop draft regulatory technical standards to determine appropriate arrangements, systems and procedures as well as notification templates to be used by persons to comply with the requirements of articles 16(1) and (2) of MAR.
On September 28, 2015 ESMA published a final report on draft technical standards on MAR and submitted it to the European Commission. The Commission has now adopted a delegated Regulation that specifies requirements for the arrangements, procedures and systems that market operators, investment firms operating a trading venue and any person professionally arranging or executing transactions should have in place to report orders and transactions that could constitute insider dealing, market manipulation or attempted insider dealing or market manipulation under MAR.
The layout of the delegated Regulation is as follows:
- Article 1: definitions;
- Article 2: general requirements on persons professionally arranging or executing transactions, market operators and investment firms operating a trading venue to establish and maintain arrangements, systems and procedures to report orders and transactions that could constitute insider dealing, market manipulation or attempted insider dealing or market manipulation under MAR;
- Article 3: further develops elements of the arrangements, systems and procedures persons professionally executing or arranging transactions and market operators and investment firms operating trading venues must meet;
- Article 4: prescribes requirements on training;
- Article 5: lays down details on reporting obligations;
- Article 6: relates to the timing of suspicious transaction and order reports (STORs);
- Article 7: specifies the contents of STORs
- Article 8: details the transmission of STORs
- Annex: template for a STOR.
The delegated Regulation will enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. It will apply from 3 July 2016.
