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It is not clear whether a parent undertaking is required to aggregate an Entitlement to Acquire and/or Financial Instrument with Similar Economic Effect (collectively the “Article 13 Financial Instruments”) which its subsidiary undertaking holds indirectly. For instance, where a subsidiary owns share options having voting rights (i.e. an Article 13 Financial Instrument - article 13(1)(a)) in an issuer, but holds those share options through a trustee (therefore falling under article 10(g)), would the subsidiary’s ‘indirect’ control over the voting rights pursuant to the share options (registered in the name of the trustee) need to be aggregated by the parent?

The doubt arises because article 10 of the Transparency Directive which creates a list of cases where an indirect holding is said to arise cross-refers only to article 9 (i.e. to holdings of voting rights), and not to Article 13 Financial Instruments. Accordingly, there is doubt, whether the reference to “indirect” holdings of Article 13 Financial Instruments in article 13a(1) (regarding aggregation) should be interpreted with the plain English meaning of “indirect” which refers to a parent-sub relationship, or whether it should be extended to include all the forms of indirect ownership under article 10 of the Transparency Directive.

Art. 30 (1) & (2) of DORA demand that financial institutions have signed contractual agreements with all their ICT service providers, in particular in Art. 30(2) &(3) the elements that shall be included in the contractual arrangements are listed.

Are ICT service providers permitted under DORA to charge the financial institutions "merely for signing" a DORA addendum or updated contractual arrangements in the framework of Art. 30, DORA?

The European Commission clarified in Q&A II.1 that, pursuant to Article 9(3) of SFDR, financial products tracking a Paris-aligned Benchmark (PAB) or a Climate Transition Benchmark (CTB) are deemed to make sustainable investments. Based on this clarification, can such financial products hold investments eligible under PAB/CTB requirements, which may, however, not qualify as sustainable investments within the meaning of Article 2(17) of SFDR under the relevant financial market participant’s own methodology?
Can the clarification provided by Q&A II.1 also be extended to:
- Financial products disclosing under Article 9(3) of SFDR that apply all requirements of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/1818 for PABs/CTBs, but that do not passively track such indices?
- Other types of financial products that have a reduction in carbon emissions as their objective and disclose under Article 9(3) of SFDR (i.e. without tracking a PAB/CTB or applying the requirements applicable to these indices)?

In the case where a financial market participant, such as a fund manager (delegator), delegates the portfolio management of a fund to an investment firm (delegatee), is the delegatee investment firm subject to the same SFDR disclosure obligations for the portfolio management it performs for that fund as when it deals with discretionary portfolio management mandates with end investors?

In the case of exchange-traded derivatives (‘ETDs’), can reporting counterparties (which are in this case, their own ERRs) submit a single consolidated Errors and Omissions Notification?