ESMA has issued its 2026 European Common Enforcement Priorities (ECEP) statement, outlining key areas that ESMA and national enforcers will focus on when enforcing issuers’ annual financial reports. The priorities include financial and sustainability reporting, European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) reporting, and alternative performance measures (APMs).
This year’s ECEP focus on geopolitical risks, restructuring provisions and debt restructuring for financial reporting, materiality considerations and providing connected information for sustainability reporting, and common ESEF filing errors in the statement of changes in equity. ESMA urges issuers, auditors, and supervisory boards to maintain high-quality corporate reporting practices by ensuring consistency, transparency, and adherence to the applicable reporting frameworks and technical standards.
Alongside the 2026 ECEP, ESMA has published the 31st extract from the FRWG (EECS) database of enforcement. It contains seven enforcement decisions covering a range of topics, including revenue recognition, the capitalisation of borrowing costs, disclosures relating to deferred tax assets, governance assistance and issues highlighted in previous ECEP Statements, such as fair value measurement and the connectivity between financial and non-financial information. Two of the decisions also address the application of ESMA’s Guidelines on Alternative Performance Measures (APM Guidelines).
These documents aim to support issuers, supervisory bodies and auditors in improving corporate disclosures and to assist investors in taking better-informed decisions.
