The European Securities and Markets Authority has issued an opinion addressed to EU national regulators on the market size calculation for the ancillary activity exemption under the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.

MiFID II provides an exemption from the requirement for authorization as an investment firm when dealing on own account, or providing investment services to clients in commodity derivatives, emission allowances or derivatives thereof, provided that the activity is an ancillary activity to their main business at group level and the main business is not the provision of investment services within the meaning of MiFID II or banking activities under the Capital Requirements Directive. Delegated Regulation (EU 2017/592) sets out the criteria for establishing when an activity should be considered as ancillary to the main business at group level, including the rules for calculating the overall market trading activity of a firm.

ESMA's opinion provides guidance to market participants and national regulators on determining market size figures, since there is no centralized, publicly available record of transactions for commodity derivatives and emission allowances. ESMA acknowledges that the data it has used for the guidance may have limitations in terms of accuracy and completeness and states that national regulators may use alternative data provided by market participants for the calculation.

View the opinion.