THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on markets in financial instruments and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 [OJ L 173, 12.6.2014, p. 84.], and in particular the third subparagraph of Article 26(9) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) For the purposes of effective data analysis by competent authorities, there should be consistency in the standards and formats used when reporting transactions.

(2) Given market practices, supervisory experience and market developments, the meaning of a transaction for reporting purposes should be broad. It should cover purchases and sales of reportable instruments as well as other cases of acquisition or disposal of reportable instruments, as these may also give rise to market abuse concerns. Furthermore, changes to notional amount may give rise to concerns about possible market abuse as they are similar in nature to additional purchase or sale transactions. In order for competent authorities to distinguish those changes from other purchases or sales, information on those changes should be specifically reported in transaction reports.

(3) The concept of a transaction should not include acts or events which do not need to be reported to competent authorities for market surveillance purposes. In order to ensure that information on such acts and events is not included in transaction reports, they should be specifically excluded from the meaning of a transaction.