On January 4, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published an updated version of its questions and answers document (Q&As) on transparency topics under the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR). This follows the last updated version of its Q&As, which ESMA published on November 14, 2018 (for more information, see the November 16, 2018 edition of Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest).

The new and modified Q&As clarify the following topics:

  1. publication of request for market data transactions (under Q&A 4, section 3);
  2. the default transparency regime for equity instruments (under Q&A 3, section 3); and
  3. default large in scale and size-specific-to-the-instrument transparency thresholds for bonds (under Q&A 15, section 4).

The updated Q&As, along with an overview of them, are available here.