On July 17, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) updated its Q&As on the EU Benchmarks Regulation (BMR). The Q&As aim to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the day-to-day application of the BMR.

The update to the Q&As on the BMR clarifies:

  1. when a calculation agent is considered a user of benchmarks if it is appointed by an issuer of securities; and
  2. whether a benchmark can qualify as a “regulated-data benchmark” if a third party is involved in the process of obtaining the data.

ESMA’s prior update to the Q&As on the BMR was released in March 2018 and further details of that update can be found in the Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest edition of March 30, 2018.

The updated Q&As on the BMR are available here.