The European Securities and Markets Authority has launched a consultation on proposed Guidelines on the obligations applying to the provision of and contribution to non-significant benchmarks under the Benchmarks Regulation. The Benchmarks Regulation requires administrators of all benchmarks to establish a permanent and effective oversight function for the provision of their benchmarks. The proposed Guidelines detail the composition, characteristics, positioning and governance arrangements of the oversight function. The draft Guidelines also detail the governance and control requirements for supervised contributors. The proposed Guidelines would apply to administrators of benchmarks, supervised contributors of benchmarks and to the relevant benchmark national regulators.

The Benchmarks Regulation will apply in full from January 1, 2018. The consultation closes on November 30, 2017. ESMA intends to publish its final Guidelines after the European Commission has published its Delegated Regulations that also relate to these topics.

View the consultation paper.