Summary

The obligation for EU investment firms to identify their clients (that are legal persons) with the LEI is enshrined in MiFIR. An investment firm shall not provide any service triggering the obligation to submit a transaction report for a transaction entered into on behalf of a client who is eligible for the LEI code, prior to obtaining the LEI code from that client.

Trading venues equally are obliged to identify each issuer of a financial instrument traded on their systems with an LEI code when making daily data submission to the Financial Instruments Reference data System (FIRDS).

These requirements have an impact on all clients of EU investment firms and any entity issuing financial instrument traded on European trading venues. The EU investment firms and EU trading venues are obliged to report the LEI codes of these entities regardless of where the clients or issuers are based and regardless of whether they are subject to LEI requirements in their own jurisdiction.

In the last weeks, ESMA and national competent authorities (NCAs) received a number of indications that not all investment firms will succeed in obtaining LEI codes from all their clients that are legal persons ahead of 3 January 2018. At the same time, these firms might be approached by such client s after 3 January 2018 with the request to provide a service triggering the obligation to submit a transaction report. Similarly, ESMA and NCAs are aware of the concerns raised by some trading venues that additional time might be required to reach out to non-EU issuers whose financial instruments are traded on European trading venues in order to inform them about the applicable MiFIR and MAR requirements and obtain their LEI codes.