The European Securities and Markets Authority has published a revised procedure and a harmonized template to be used by national regulators in reporting to ESMA the parameters to halt or constrain trading used by the trading venues under their jurisdiction. The revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive places obligations on national regulators to require a regulated market in their jurisdiction to be able to temporarily halt or constrain trading if there is significant price movement in a financial instrument on that market or a related market during a short period and, in exceptional cases, to be able to cancel, vary or correct any transaction. The regulated market must report the parameters for halting trading and any material changes to those parameters to the national regulator and the national regulator must in turn report them to ESMA.

The ESMA procedure and template is designed to establish a common format for national regulators to use for the reports they make to ESMA. However, national regulators can, if they wish, require trading venues to report to them the parameters using a different and/or more granular format.

ESMA has postponed the delivery of the first reports under the procedure by six months. The first reports should therefore be submitted to ESMA by the end of June 2018.

View the procedure document.

View the reporting template.