ESMA updates MiFID II trading halts procedure

On 19 December 2017, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a revised procedure and template to be used by national competent authorities (NCAs) for the purpose of reporting the parameters used by trading venues under their jurisdiction for halting trading in accordance with Article 48(5) of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II). 

The reporting template has been amended with the main objective to reduce, to the extent possible, fields with free text and replace those fields with hard-coded input. This is to facilitate extraction, computation and ultimately the analysis of the files.

ESMA understands that certain trading venues may already have started to calibrate the reporting of their parameters based on the July 2017 template. ESMA therefore considers it appropriate to publish, together with the revised template, a revised procedure postponing by six months the delivery of the first report to ESMA.

The first reports were meant to be received by ESMA by end of January 2018 and the revised instructions now clarify that this report should be sent to ESMA by end of June 2018.