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.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is publishing a summary of its 2014 supervisory work plan in relation to trade repositories (TRs) with the aim of enhancing the transparency of its actions regarding TRs in the European Union. TRs centrally collect and maintain the records of derivative trades and play a central role in enhancing the transparency of derivative markets and reducing risks to financial stability. In November 2013, ESMA registered six TRs. The obligation for counterparties to report their derivative trades to registered TRs began on 12 February 2014. Under Titles VI and VII of Regulation EU 648/2012 (EMIR), the direct supervision of TRs has been entrusted to ESMA, who has started to supervise the six registered TRs. Supervision of TRs by ESMA is crucial to ensuring that TRs comply on an on-going basis with all EMIR requirements, thereby enabling regulators to access data and details of derivative contracts in order for them to fulfil their respective mandates.