Several trade associations, including FIA, EFET, GFMA and ISDA have proposed a questions and answer document to ESMA on position reporting under MiFID II. The document can be found here. If adopted by ESMA, the proposals will help to answer some of the many outstanding points on position reporting, which is outlined in ITS 4. ESMA released a final draft of ITS 4 (see here) a few weeks ago.

Position reports must be submitted by Market Operators, and also Investment Firms. Many energy and commodity traders, who are able to use the Ancillary Activity exemption, will not be required to submit such reports. However they will be required to provide data on the “hedge” status of positions so that the correct breakdown can be reported by the relevant parties.

The Q+A addresses the issue of reporting of the “end client”, a requirement in MiFID II for the reporting party. The Q+A looks at the topic of reporting the end client of a non investment firm, (i.e. the client of the client of the investment firm) and also the issue of reporting of Economically Equivalent OTC contracts, which according to the second MiFID II consultation of the FCA (see here) is not required to be reported by non investment firms.