EMIR: A Fair Price for Safety and Transparency - speech by Steven Maijoor, ESMA Chair, at the EMIR conference in the Hague

On 14 January 2013 ESMA received a formal request from the European Commission (the Commission) to provide technical advice to assist the Commission in formulating a Regulation on fees for Trade Repositories (TRs) by a delegated act. In order to deliver its advice to the Commission, ESMA consulted market participants regarding the proposed fee structures for registration, supervision and recognition of TRs. Respondents to this consultation were encouraged to provide the relevant data to support their arguments or proposals.Given the time period established for providing this advice, ESMA was compelled to require responses to the consultation within a short timeframe. In total, ESMA received 8 responses to the consultation. Non-confidential responses can be found on ESMA’s website. ESMA would like to thank respondents for providing input given the short period ESMA was able to consult for. This document sets out a summary of the responses received by ESMA regarding the fee structure for registration, supervision and recognition of TRs in the EU and includes ESMA’s final technical advice to the Commission on the future Regulation on fees for TRs which will be adopted by the Commission in the form of a delegated act. It is worth noting that all major ESMA proposals were supported by respondents and where comments were received ESMA has considered how best to adjust the original proposals. Next steps ESMA will follow-up on this work with the Commission as they work on the adoption of the Commission delegated regulation on fees for TRs.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has sent the European Commission a Final Report proposing an amendment to Article 5 of the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No.1247/2012 (ITS on reporting) on the format and frequency of reporting to trade repositories under EMIR. The amendment relates specifically to the reporting of exchange traded derivatives (ETDs) and proposes postponing the reporting start date by one year. Background Article 5 regards the reporting start date of derivatives to trade repositories, however the current dates do not include a specification of ETDs. This specification would be useful as there is a risk currently that reporting of ETDs is not harmonised unless further regulatory guidance is issued. Based on the need to ensure the consistent implementation of EMIR, ESMA considered that guidelines and recommendations should be developed in relation to this issue. A delay in the reporting date for ETD transactions will allow sufficient time for the development of the relevant guidelines and their implementation by counterparties, trade repositories and regulators. The European Commission has three months to decide whether to endorse ESMA’s draft implementing technical standards.

Steven Maijoor, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), delivered the keynote speech at the Ernst & Young Financial Reporting Outlook Conference in London.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has issued final draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) related to derivative transactions by non-European Union (EU) counterparties. The RTS implement provisions of the Regulation on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (EMIR).

Reasons for publication On 29 of April 2013 ESMA received a formal request from the European Commission (the Commission) to provide technical advice to assist the Commission in formulating procedural rules to impose fines and periodic penalty payments to trade repositories (TRs) by delegated act. In order to deliver its advice to the Commission, ESMA consulted market participants regarding the procedural rules to impose fines and periodic penalty payments to TRs. Respondents to the consultation were encouraged to provide the relevant information in support of their arguments or proposals. ESMA published the consultation on 18 October 2013. The market participants could provide their comments until 15 November 2013. In total ESMA received two responses to the consultation. The respondents have required confidential treatment for their input. ESMA would like to thank respondents for providing input. Contents This document sets out a summary of the responses received by ESMA regarding the procedural rules to impose fines and periodic penalty payments to TRs and includes ESMA’s final technical advice to the Commission on the future Regulation on the procedural rules to impose fines and periodic penalty payments to TRs which will be adopted by the Commission in the form of a delegated act. It is worth noting that all major ESMA proposals were supported by respondents and where comments were received ESMA has considered them carefully. Next steps ESMA will follow-up on this work with the Commission towards the adoption of the Commission delegated regulation on procedural rules to impose fines and periodic penalty payments to TRs.

ESMA delivers second set of advice on EMIR equivalence Following its technical advice published on 9 September 2013, the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) has published a supplement to its advice to the European Commission on the equivalence of the regulatory regime for central counterparties (CCPs) of Japan with the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). This supplement to the September 2013 Final report sets out ESMA’s advice to the European Commission is in respect of the equivalence between the Japanese regulatory regime for commodity CCPs and the regulatory regime for CCPs under EMIR. ESMA proposes conditional equivalence As for ESMA’s advice to the Commission in respect of Japan for CCPs which clear transactions relating to securities, currencies, interest rates, credit, weather, GDP and other indices, ESMA considers that the Japanese regulatory regime for commodity CCPs contains legal provisions and involves supervision and enforcement similar to that of EMIR. The Commission is expected to use ESMA’s technical advice to prepare possible equivalence decisions. Where it adopts such a decision, certain provisions of EMIR may be disapplied in favour of equivalent third-country rules. In particular, ESMA may recognise within the EU a CCP which is authorised outside the EU. The different pieces of advice are available on ESMA’s website.

Keynote Speech - The reform of financial markets: halfway there Steven Maijoor, ESMA Chair AFME Post Trade Conference, London Excerpt "Three challenges Ladies and gentlemen, so far so good about the completion of the legislation to meet our G20 commitments and developing a single rulebook for financial services. Let me now turn to the three main challenges I see in the current phase of regulatory reform. My main message is that while the legislative phase nears completion, it does not imply the completion of the regulatory reform programme. Let me explain that further by identifying three commitments for the next phase of regulatory reform. Firstly, commitment to the financial reform, its implementation and to adequate supervision. Legislation needs to be accompanied by good implementing measures, to ensure the legislation works in practice, and credible supervision. Secondly, a commitment to supervisory convergence in order to establish a truly internal market and to prevent regulatory arbitrage within the EU. Agreeing at EU level on a single rule book for all 28 Member States is a big step. However, ensuring that this single rule book is supervised consistently across the 28 Member States is an even bigger step. Thirdly, in order to prevent crises we need commitment to the lessons learned from the crisis regarding risk analysis and the availability of high quality data on financial markets. We need more information on securities markets. Since the beginning of the financial crisis securities regulators have learned a lot about how to deal with financial stability – an area that was beforehand mainly reserved for central bankers and banking regulators. Information on financial markets is key to achieve the financial stability objective. It is therefore no surprise that many pieces of recently introduced legislation already include data requirements. Securities regulators however also need to step up their role on this and need more resources to collect and analyse data. It goes without saying that more data and analysis will also support our other important objective of investor protection."