Whistleblowers
If you are a whistleblower and would like to report information relating to a breach, abuse of law or failure to apply Union law in the areas within ESMA’s competence, you may do so through our secure whistleblowing platform.
The platform may also be used by persons who would like to report alleged misconduct at ESMA as well as any person who would like to report an infringement of a national provision transposing the UCITS Directive.
ESMA has secure and confidential arrangements in place for receiving and handling such reports. Reports may be submitted anonymously.
Before submitting a report, please make sure that you know what kind of information you can submit and how the platform works, as outlined below. Please also read the Legal Notice and the Data Protection Statement.
Your report must be made in good faith and with reasonable grounds. Please include documentation substantiating your claims. If your claims are not supported, we might take no action.
What can be reported?
You may submit reports of cases of actual or potential breaches, abuse of law or failure to apply Union law in the areas within ESMA’s competence. Some examples of the reports you may submit to ESMA are:
- actual or potential breaches, abuse or failure to apply Union law by entities directly supervised by ESMA;
- potential threats to the stability of the financial system or to the protection of customers or consumers relating to such breaches, abuse or failure;
- potentially illegal activity or misconduct of ESMA, including, for example, fraud.
When should I instead report to a national supervisor or through a different reporting channel?
ESMA is not always the appropriate body to contact about potential breaches of Union law within the financial sector – it may be that your case is the responsibility of another financial regulator or supervisor. In particular, if your report concerns a suspected breach by a financial market participant that is not directly supervised by ESMA, you should report to the national supervisor.
▸ For more information, please see the Make a complaint webpage.
If your report concerns the failure of a national competent authority to comply with its obligations under Union law, to determine whether you should send your report to ESMA, please see the Breach of Union Law webpage.
If you have determined that ESMA is the most appropriate authority to send your report but you are not a whistleblower and your report does not concern the national provisions transposing the UCITS Directive, you should send the information to ESMA without using the whistleblowing platform by following the instructions on the Make a complaint webpage.
About anonymity
The secure whistleblowing platform enables you to submit your report anonymously. If you wish to remain anonymous, please do not include information that would allow you to be identified in the report, including file properties that may mention you as the author of a file, or in the free text fields.
How to submit a report to ESMA and what happens afterwards
How to report to ESMA?
Technical information on how to submit a report is provided on the platform.
If it is not possible to use the whistleblower platform and you wish to remain anonymous, you may submit a report by post. The packaging for such reports should be clearly marked as ‘confidential’ and be submitted to the following address:
Head of Department, Legal & Enforcement
ESMA
201-203 rue de Bercy
CS 80910
75589 Paris Cedex 12
France
Your report must be made in good faith and with reasonable grounds. Please include documentation substantiating your claims. If your claims are not supported, we might take no action.
What happens after a report is submitted?
An expert team within ESMA will consider your report confidentially. If we consider your report relevant, we may involve other staff to assess what action to take.
ESMA’s action may include supervisory action in relation to directly supervised entities, investigating potential breaches of Union law, making an inquiry into potential threats to financial stability or the protection of consumers or follow-up to alleged wrongdoing by ESMA.
For reasons of professional secrecy, we may not be able to provide details of what action is being taken on a report. However, if we consider that your report contains evidence of significant indications of a material breach, we will provide feedback to you.
Your information may also be provided to other relevant authorities if appropriate or required by law.