The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its final guidelines with regards to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) I. At present, there is no universally adopted definition of derivatives under MiFID I within the EU. These guidelines will act as a single reference point for the application of definitions of commodity derivatives under C6 and C7 of Annex I of current MiFID I.
Current national application of the definitions is leading to inconsistency in the application of EMIR, particularly MiFID II will come into effect on 3rd January 2017, at the time when the European Commission would have issued its own delegated acts in view of these definitions. The new guidelines will start being applied as of 7th August 2015 and these will be superseded by the EC's delegated acts on MiFID II.
It is also important to note that these guidelines will not be translated to other European languages since their effective duration is rather short.
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