339. The venue of execution of the derivative contract shall be identified by a unique code for this venue.

340. Where a contract was concluded OTC and the respective instrument is not admitted to trading or traded on a trading venue, MIC code 'XXXX' shall be used.

341. Where a contract was concluded OTC and the respective instrument is admitted to trading or traded on a trading venue inside of the Union, MIC code 'XOFF' shall be used. ESMA proposed to align this field with MIFIR, hence for MTFs, OTFs, SIs and organized trading platforms outside of the Union, the specific MIC code will be required even if the derivatives concluded on these venues are OTC derivatives under the definition set out in EMIR. This proposal has been opposed by a few respondents, however given the overall support and the benefits from the alignment of the reporting rules between EMIR and MiFIR ESMA has decided to retain the proposal made in the Consultation Paper.

342. ESMA recalls that in the EU all instruments admitted to trading or traded on a trading venue are made publicly available on ESMA's website, therefore the counterparties are expected to be able to determine whether they should report 'XOFF' or 'XXXX'.