1. The competent authorities shall carry out as appropriate but at least annually supervisory stress tests on institutions they supervise, to facilitate the review and evaluation process under Article 97.
2. EBA shall issue guidelines in accordance with Article 16 of Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010 to ensure that common methodologies are used by the competent authorities when conducting annual supervisory stress tests.
3. Institutions and third parties acting in a consulting capacity to institutions in the context of stress testing exercises shall refrain from activities that can impair a stress test, such as benchmarking, exchange of information among themselves, agreements on common behaviour, or optimisation of their submissions for stress tests. Without prejudice to other relevant provisions laid down in this Directive and in Regulation (EU) No 575/2013, competent authorities shall have all information gathering and investigatory powers that are necessary to detect those activities.
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