ESMA issued guidance on the transparency requirements for activity executed on a third country trading venue aiming to ensure that duplicate reports are not routinely published when the third country trading venue has similar transparency provisions to EU trading venues. SIX fulfils all criteria set out by ESMA in their guidance.
This assessment is different to the equivalence determination made by the EU Commission under MIFIR Art 23.
ESMA stated that ‘In order to contribute to the smooth implementation of MiFID II/MiFIR as of 3 January 2018 and to maintain a level playing field between third country trading venues, transactions on third country trading venues should not be required to be made post-trade transparent under Articles 20 and 21 of MiFIR pending the publication of the outcome of the assessment of the criteria stated in paragraph 10. So far ESMA have not concluded any determinations of third country trading venues.