Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1437 of 19 May 2016 supplementing Directive 2004/109/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to regulatory technical standards on access to regulated information at Union level (Text with EEA relevance)

• CELEX: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1437
• Articles: 11

Article 1 The European Electronic Access Point

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) shall set up as a web portal, the European Electronic Access Point (EEAP), to regulated information to enable end users to search for regulated information stored by official appointed mechanisms (OAMs). The web portal shall be accessible through the website of ESMA.

Article 2 EEAP communication technologies, availability and support level

1.   The security and integrity of the metadata on regulated information exchanged between OAMs and the EEAP shall be guaranteed. The EEAP and each OAM shall use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) to connect with each other.

2.   ESMA shall cooperate with the OAMs to identify and implement an alternative communication technology to be used instead of HTTPS and to define the timeline for its implementation.

3.   Where ESMA considers, according to objective technical criteria, that the cooperation required under paragraph 2 is ineffective for the purpose of ensuring security and integrity of the exchange of metadata on regulated information, ESMA may specify a communication technology to be used instead of the HTTPS.

4.   The EEAP shall be easily scalable and adaptable to changes in the volumes of search requests and metadata to be delivered by OAMs.

5.   The EEAP shall be available to end users at least 95 % per month.

6.   The EEAP system shall be backed up on a daily basis.

7.   Service support from ESMA to EEAP end users and to OAMs shall be provided within ESMA working hours, as set by ESMA Executive Director and published on ESMA website.

Article 3 Search function

1.   The following search criteria shall be offered on the EEAP:

(a)

the name of the issuers from whom regulated information originated;

(b)

the unique identifier of issuers as set out in Article 7;

(c)

the home Member States of the issuer as defined in Article 2(1)(i) of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(d)

the classification of regulated information as set out in Article 9(2).

2.   The EEAP shall enable end users to search for issuer names in all available language versions of the issuers' names stored by OAMs.

3.   The EEAP shall provide search results in accordance with the search criteria selected by end users. The search results shall be in the form of a list of metadata as laid down in Section A of the Annex.

Article 4 Facilitation of access through the EEAP

1.   The metadata on regulated information referred to in Section A of the Annex shall include hyperlinks to the specific webpage of OAM websites where the visualisation and the downloading of documents containing regulated information is accessible to end users. Those webpages shall include hyperlinks to all language versions of the documents containing regulated information as disseminated by issuers and stored by OAMs in accordance with Article 21(1) of Directive 2004/109/EC.

2.   The EEAP shall, insofar as practicable, provide access to its search facility to end users using web-browsers, including web-browsers operated by mobile devices.

Article 5 OAM communication technologies, support and maintenance

1.   Each OAM shall ensure at least 95 % availability per month of its connection with the EEAP.

2.   Each OAM shall provide service support to the EEAP during its working hours in order to maintain its connections to the EEAP, and in order to enable incident escalation. Those support services shall be provided in a language customary for electronic communications

.

Article 6 Facilitation of access by OAMs

1.   Each OAM shall ensure that metadata on regulated information can be retrieved by the EEAP.

2.   Each OAM shall deliver to the EEAP the metadata on regulated information stored by them in accordance with Article 21(1) of Directive 2004/109/EC.

3.   The metadata shall include hyperlinks to the OAM webpages on which the visualisation and the downloading of documents containing regulated information is accessible to end users. Each OAM shall make available all language versions of such documents that are disseminated by issuers and stored by the OAM in accordance with Article 21(1) of Directive 2004/109/EC.

4.   Where any document containing regulated information is modified, the OAM concerned shall immediately update the metadata on that document.

5.   OAMs shall not charge the EEAP for the delivery of metadata on regulated information.

Article 7 Unique identifier used by OAMs

Each OAM shall use legal entity identifiers (LEI) as the unique identifiers for all issuers.

Article 8 Common format for the delivery of metadata

1.   Each OAM shall use an Extensible Markup Language (XML) based format to deliver metadata on regulated information to the EEAP.

2.   Each OAM shall deliver metadata on regulated information to the EEAP in the format laid down in Section A of the Annex.

Article 9 Common list and classification of regulated information

1.   The common list of types of regulated information shall include the following information:

(a)

annual financial and audit reports which include all information required to be disclosed under Article 4 of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(b)

half-year financial reports and audit reports or limited reviews including all information required to be disclosed under Article 5 of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(c)

payments to governments which include all information required to be disclosed under Article 6 of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(d)

choice of home Member State which include the information required to be disclosed under in Article 2(1)(i) of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(e)

inside information which is required to be disclosed under Article 6 of Directive 2003/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council  ( 4 ) ;

(f)

notifications concerning voting rights which include all information required to be disclosed under Article 12 of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(g)

acquisition or disposal of the issuer's own shares which include all information required to be disclosed under Article 14 of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(h)

total number of voting rights and capital which include all information required to be disclosed under Article 15 of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(i)

changes in the rights attaching to the classes of shares or securities which include all information required to be disclosed under Article 16 of Directive 2004/109/EC;

(j)

all information not falling under points (a) to (i) but which the issuer, or any other person who has applied for the admission of securities to trading on a regulated market without the issuer's consent, is to disclose under the laws, regulations or administrative provisions of a Member State adopted under Article 3(1) of Directive 2004/109/EC.

2.   Each OAM shall classify all regulated information in accordance with Section B of the Annex.

Article 10 Entry into force and application

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union .

However, Articles 7 and 9 shall apply from 1 January 2017.

Schedules & Appendices

ANNEX

ANNEX

SECTION A

Information Exchange — Format of the Metadata to be delivered

Metadata field

Metadata field characteristics

Issuer name (in all languages used by the issuer)

Free text alpha-numeric field, UTF-8 encoding

Issuer's Home Member State

2-digit country code, ISO 3166-1

Unique identifier

LEI code, ISO 17442:2012, Alpha-numeric field, 20 characters

Type of regulated information

Taxonomy in accordance with the common list of regulated information as set out in Section B of this Annex

Uniform Resource Locator(URL)

Alpha-numeric field. The hyperlink must enable access to all documents containing regulated information in accordance with Article 4(1) according to search criteria.

SECTION B

Classes and sub-classes of regulated information

Classification of regulated information

Legal basis

1.    Periodic regulated information

1.1.

Annual financial and audit reports

all information disclosed under Article 4 of Directive 2004/109/EC

1.2.

Half yearly financial reports and audit reports/limited reviews

all information disclosed under Article 5 of Directive 2004/109/EC

1.3.

Payments to governments

all information disclosed under Article 6 of Directive 2004/109/EC

2.    Ongoing regulated information

2.1.

Home Member State

all information disclosed under Article 2(1)(i) of Directive 2004/109/EC

2.2.

Inside information

all information disclosed under Article 6 of Directive 2003/6/EC

2.3.

Major shareholding notifications

all information disclosed under Article 12 of Directive 2004/109/EC,

2.4.

Acquisition or disposal of the issuer's own shares

all information disclosed under Article 14 of Directive 2004/109/EC

2.5.

Total number of voting rights and capital

all information disclosed under Article 15 of Directive 2004/109/EC

2.6.

Changes in the rights attaching to the classes of shares or securities

all information disclosed under Article 16 of Directive 2004/109/EC

3.    Additional regulated information required to be disclosed under the laws of a Member State

3.1.

Additional regulated information required to be disclosed under the laws of a Member State

all information not falling within the sub-classes set out in points 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 and in points 2.1 to 2.6, but which the issuer, or any other person who has applied for the admission of securities to trading on a regulated market without the issuer's consent, has disclosed in accordance with a requirement under the laws, regulations or administrative provisions of a Member State adopted under Article 3(1) of Directive 2004/109/EC