On February 5, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a statement on the impact the UK’s exit from the European Union on March 29 (Exit Day) without an agreement on transitional arrangements being in place with the European Union (no-deal Brexit) would have on ESMA’s databases.

In the scenario of a no-deal Brexit, from March 30, ESMA will stop receiving data from the UK Financial Conduct Authority, which will no longer have access to ESMA’s IT applications and databases, meaning no new UK-related data will be received, processed or published on ESMA’s website.

ESMA’s statement particularly focuses on the implications for transparency calculations (under the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation) performed using The various ESMA databases, including:

• The obligation to submit reference data;

• Reporting transaction data to home competent authorities and routing relevant transactions to the relevant competent authority;

• Changes to annual transparency calculations for equity instruments;

• Transparency calculations for non-equity instruments;

• Adjusting calculations for the determination of systematic internalizers;

• Double volume cap reporting; and

• Ancillary activity calculations.

In the event that the timing and conditions of Brexit change, ESMA comments that it will modify its approach for its IT applications and databases and will inform the public of this as soon as possible.

The full statement is available here.