The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published a paper approving six high-level principles guiding the interaction with stakeholders in the course of peer reviews with the objective to obtain relevant background information. The principles build on ESMA’s current practices and are intended to respond to the following key questions:

• what entities are considered as stakeholders in the context of a peer review?

• who decides if interaction with stakeholders is needed;

• when does this decision need to be taken? Must national competent authorities (NCAs) accept the fact of stakeholder engagement?

• if an NCA may decline such a possibility, does an NCA need to explain why it would not want to have stakeholder engagement for a particular peer review?

• how is the interaction organised and how are the stakeholders chosen?

• what use is made of the outcome of the stakeholder interaction?

The principles contribute to ESMA’s commitment to focus on supervisory  convergence in 2016 and to ensure consistency of supervisory tools.

View ESMA principles on stakeholder engagement in peer reviews, 15 April 2016