Afep member companies have adopted the following position regarding the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation establishing a single access point to financial information:
- ESAP should not generate additional costs for companies or increase their liability.
- The scope of information which will be available on ESAP should be reduced and exclude supervisory reporting, Key Information Documents, disclosures of significant net short positions, reports on the quality of the execution of client orders and sanctions.
- ESAP should not impact current dissemination and storage rules of regulated information in Each Member State. AFEP therefore puts forward amendments to allow Member States to choose and appoint the collection body.
- Finally, AFEP considers that whenever ESMA is empowered with the task to develop implementing technical standards regarding the metadata to be included, the structuring of the data and the use of machine-readable formats, a minimum period of 12 months before the application of the new requirements should be explicitly included in the technical standards. The definition of technical standards and the choice of reporting formats, should be based on a robust cost-benefit analysis and stakeholders’ consultation.