On Friday, ESMA published an update of the opinion document for market sizes to be used as part of the ancillary activity test, adding estimated market sizes for the year 2019. The document can be found here.

The ancillary activity test is used by market participants that use the ancillary activity exemption found in MiFID II Article 2(1)j, and associated Delegated Acts (see here). The market sizes are used as the denominator in the “market size test” part of the calculation.  The 2019 total estimate has reduced for several of the commodities, in some cases quite significantly. Such a reduction makes it harder for firms trading in-scope products to pass the test and to be able to rely on the exemption.

From next year, the issue of the removal of the UK’s part of the market from the estimates will also need to be addressed due to Brexit (see here for the relevant letter from ESMA).