Reporting obligation under MiFIR

Investment firms subject to the reporting obligation pursuant to Article 26 of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) as well as branches located inside the European Economic Area (EEA) whose head office is based in a third country, must then ensure before executing the transaction that their clients have an active Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) in order to be able to correctly identify them in the reports. Otherwise, the institution cannot execute the reportable transactions. The customers are therefore required to apply for an LEI.

The LEI is a globally valid identification number which uniquely identifies the companies involved in a transaction. Its use was expedited at the behest of the G20 countries after the emergence of the financial crisis and it is already being actively used, amongst other things, for the reporting of derivatives transactions pursuant to EMIR Article 9.

LEIs are allocated by Local Operating Units (LOUs). Fees are levied for issuing an LEI and after each yearly certification. These fees can be viewed in the terms and conditions of the respective LOU. Companies which use an LEI must update their reference data every year and transmit these to the LOU.

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