Government & open data
ESMA
ESMA is the European securities and markets authority, established in 2011. It pursues investor protection, orderly markets and financial stability through guidelines, draft technical standards, opinions, Q&As, peer reviews and risk analysis. ESMA is also the direct supervisor of a limited set of entities and publishes its own enforcement decisions. Anyone working with MiFID II, MAR, EMIR, the Prospectus Regulation, AIFMD, UCITS or MiCA will run into its publications.
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What this source does not give you
ESMA publications are neither legislation nor case law. Of its Q&As, ESMA states that they are non-binding for market participants and that only the Court of Justice of the European Union can give a definitive interpretation of EU law. The registers and databases rest on notifications from national authorities and from the entities themselves; ESMA does not vouch for the completeness of data it does not itself establish.
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Frequently asked questions
- Which parties are under ESMA's direct supervision?
- A defined set: credit rating agencies, trade repositories, securitisation repositories, certain third-country central counterparties, critical benchmark administrators and data reporting services providers. Investment firms, fund managers, issuers and trading venues are supervised by the national supervisor in their member state. That distinction also determines where an enforcement decision comes from.
- How much weight does an ESMA Q&A carry in a discussion with a supervisor?
- A lot in practice, little in law. ESMA publishes answers to questions of wider relevance to help stakeholders, but expressly calls them non-binding for market participants and adds that only the Court of Justice of the EU can give a definitive interpretation of EU law. So a Q&A shows how the supervisor reads the provision; it is not the basis on which an obligation rests. Any stakeholder may submit a question, in any official EU language, although ESMA works in English.
- What is in ESMA's sanctions database, and what is not?
- It holds the enforcement actions ESMA itself has taken against entities under its direct supervision, with public notices of the infringements found, the fines imposed and the Board of Supervisors' decisions. Since 2018 ESMA publishes more extensive public versions of those decisions, including findings and reasoning. Fines and measures imposed by national supervisors are not included; for those you need the national supervisor concerned.
- How do ESMA guidelines and technical standards relate to each other?
- Technical standards (RTS and ITS) become legally binding after the European Commission endorses them through a delegated or implementing act. Guidelines are addressed to competent authorities or market participants and fall under comply-or-explain: ESMA is entitled to receive information on compliance and to publish the reasons for a supervisor's non-compliance. Recommendations are rare; ESMA has used that instrument once so far, following a peer review.
- Which registers does ESMA maintain?
- A long series, spread across the regulations it serves: benchmark and third-country benchmark administrators, prospectuses and the securities they cover, crowdfunding service providers, the interim MiCA register of white papers and crypto-asset service providers, registered credit rating agencies and the European Rating Platform, managers of alternative investment funds and UCITS, money market funds, ELTIFs, FIRDS and FITRS, trading venues and investment firms, positions and position limits, central counterparties and central securities depositories, trade repositories and securitisation repositories. They differ considerably in currency and detail, because the way data is supplied differs per register.