United Kingdom (and EU regulation)

ESMA publishes manual on post-trade transparency

On 10 July 2023, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a final report which sets out Level 3 guidance on post trade transparency fields in the form of a manual. It also sets out ESMA’s feedback to its earlier consultation paper on the manual.

In terms of ESMA’s feedback to the comments received to its earlier consultation paper:

The manual is not intended to be an interactive tool alongside the Single Rulebook. The manual is developed as a Level 3 tool purely explicative of the existing requirements and it will be itself part of the interactive Single Rulebook.
The manual will be updated in light of amendments of the rules and provisions referred to therein and/or when additional guidance is provided to clarify certain provisions.
The manual provides guidance only on the post-trade transparency regime and the transparency calculations, and for this purpose the legal references and the guidance to be included should merely pertain to the topics covered by the manual.
On the request for guidance on exclusion of inter-affiliate transactions (between two legal entity identifiers) ESMA notes the exclusion of such transactions from the transparency regime would require a Level 1 amendment first and hence cannot be solved by the manual.
In relation to the request of additional clarifications with respect to the “Venue of execution” field (field 8 of Commission Delegated Regulation 2017/587 (RTS 1); field 13 of Commission Delegated Regulation 2017/583 (RTS 2)) and “Third-country trading venue of execution” field (field 9 of RTS 1; field 14 of RTS 2), those are provided in the manual and no changes to the current guidance are foreseen. The manual explains guidance on the use of the ESMA opinion on third-country trading venues, which continues to apply, and includes the already available Q&As on third-country issues.
In relation to the request for an equivalence decision for UK approved publication arrangements, MiFIR does not provide for such equivalence decisions and hence any decision in this respect would need to be agreed by co-legislators and reflected in the regulatory framework first. In consequence, it is not in the scope of the manual.

The manual will be updated on a regular basis when further guidance is necessary or legal and legislative changes occur. The manual will also be updated following the review of MiFIR and the revision of its relevant Level 2 measures.