FESE Response to the second ESMA Consultation on the Technical standards specifying certain requirements under MICA

FESE welcomes the opportunity to contribute its views to the second ESMA consultation on the Technical Standards specifying certain requirements under MiCA.

The ESMA consultation focuses on five sets of proposed rules, covering:

• sustainability indicators for distributed ledgers;
• disclosures of inside information;
• technical requirements for white papers;
• trade transparency measures; and
• record-keeping and business continuity requirements for crypto-asset service providers.

On the trade transparency measures, FESE welcomes standard practices applicable to all market participants without exemptions. We believe that explicitly stated requirements for pre-trade and post-trade information and its publication should be acknowledged and agreed as proposed. Regarding the publication of information on the operating rules for trading platforms, FESE supports the view that this information should be published free of charge and, as a result, create greater transparency towards the market. FESE supports the proportionality principle with the emphasis that any attempt to avoid requirements by declaring “Pseudo-insignificance” should be prevented. In principle, FESE welcomes ESMA’s mandate to make proposals on sustainability disclosures under MiCAR. FESE however would like to bring attention to the difficulties encountered so far in gathering sufficient data and with sufficient quality, among other aspects as outlined in the FESE response.