ESMA’s Final Report on Clearing Thresholds

On the 3rd October 2022, the Malta Financial Services Authority (“MFSA”) issued a circular addressed to those market participants which enter into derivative contracts falling within the scope of Regulation No. 648/2012, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (“EMIR”), namely financial counterparties and non-financial counterparties.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) conducted a review of the clearing thresholds, detailed in a Discussion Paper titled ‘Review of the clearing thresholds under EMIR’ issued on the 22nd November 2021.

From the feedback garnered through the public consultation, ESMA issued a Final Report titled ‘EMIR RTS on the commodity derivative clearing threshold’ on 3rd June 2022. As its title denotes, this Final Report contained draft EMIR Regulatory Technical Standards (“RTS”), proposing to increase the clearing thresholds for commodity derivatives. Furthermore, ESMA also published a Feedback Report titled ‘Report on the Review of the Clearing Thresholds under EMIR’. This Feedback Report builds upon the already issued Final Report, and it analyses the feedback received by ESMA from market participants throughout the public consultation, besides what was already covered by ESMA’s Final Report.

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