The European Securities and Markets Authority has launched a consultation on proposed changes to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. MAR requires the European Commission to report on certain aspects of the operation of MAR, including where appropriate, making recommendations for legislative change. The proposals will mostly affect issuers of financial instruments admitted to trading or trading on a trading venue, investment firms and asset management firms. ESMA is holding a public hearing on the proposals on November 5, 2019, and the consultation closes on November 29, 2019. ESMA expects to submit its report to the Commission in Spring 2020.

ESMA's consultation includes discussion on those areas on which the Commission is required under MAR to prepare a report, the additional issues that the Commission has requested ESMA to assess and related topics that ESMA considers useful to discuss at the same time. These include:

• whether the scope of MAR should be extended to include Spot FX contracts;
• whether the scope of the provisions in MAR on benchmark manipulation should be revised, taking into account the entry into force of the EU Benchmark Regulation and its upcoming review in 2020;
• the definition of inside information and the effectiveness of the mechanism to delay disclosure of inside information;
• the content of insider lists and permanent insider provisions;
• various aspects of the regime for "persons discharging managerial responsibilities" (PDMRs), including whether the trading prohibition for PDMRs is appropriate; whether it should be applied to collective investment undertakings and the appropriateness of the thresholds to notify PDMR transactions;
• the viability of introducing a cross-market order book surveillance framework for market abuse, taking into account the transparency and reporting requirements under the Markets in Financial Instruments package;
• whether the existing provisions and tools for the cross-border enforcement of sanctions are effective;
• whether additional EU rules on administrative sanctions for market manipulation and insider trading should be introduced.

View the consultation paper.

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