Article 14 Identification of clients that are legal entities

To facilitate market surveillance and to allow for the comparability of the records to be kept by crypto-asset service providers, clients of crypto-asset service providers that are legal entities should be identified with a code that is compatible with the internationally established criteria for the development of robust identification systems for the monitoring of financial markets. Such code should be unique, neutral, reliable, open source, scalable, accessible, available for free or at a reasonable cost, and subject to an appropriate governance framework. These criteria were also used by the competent authorities for assessing the most appropriate identifiers in previous technical standards on supervisory data(⁵)Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/363 of 13 December 2018 laying down implementing technical standards with regard to the format and frequency of reports on the details of securities financing transactions (SFTs) to trade repositories in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2015/2365 of the European Parliament and of the Council and amending Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1247/2012 with regard to the use of reporting codes in the reporting of derivative contracts (OJ L 81, 22.3.2019, p. 85, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2019/363/oj).(⁶)Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1247/2012 of 19 December 2012 laying down implementing technical standards with regard to the format and frequency of trade reports to trade repositories according to Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (OJ L 352, 21.12.2012, p. 20, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2012/1247/oj)., to ensure consistency and comparability of data on financial transactions, and therefore should also be applicable in the context of this Regulation.

LEI is a widely recognised, financially and operationally accessible international identifier used in financial markets. LEI is an international identifier that ensures access to the underlying data at all times, allowing for comparability and aggregation of information at Union level, improving the quality and timeliness of aggregated data and reducing the reporting burden for crypto-asset service providers. Therefore, crypto-asset services providers should, where available, record the LEI of clients that are legal persons on whose behalf they carry out orders and execute transactions. However, there are other legal entity identifiers that may be appropriate for use in the context of this Regulation. Directive (EU) 2017/1132 of the European Parliament and of the Council(⁷)Directive (EU) 2017/1132 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2017 relating to certain aspects of company law (OJ L 169, 30.6.2017, p. 46, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2017/1132/oj). requires companies subject to that Directive to have a European Unique identifier (‘EUID’), which unequivocally identifies companies and as such is an appropriate tool for the identification of entities in the EU. Within a period of 18 months after the entry into force of this Regulation, the Commission and ESMA will work closely to facilitate the use of EUID as a tool to identify clients that are legal entities for the purpose of this Regulation. Following the completion of this work, the Commission should assess the readiness to use EUID for the purposes of Article 14. Additionally, to ensure openness to other identifiers which may be fit for supervisory purposes and support the integrity of the market, this Regulation sets out criteria that should be met by those alternative identifiers. To enable the market to use such eligible alternative identifiers, ESMA should approve their use where they meet the criteria set out in this Regulation.

A unique method for the identification and classification of parties compliant with the above-mentioned criteria and instruments that follow these principles directly supports efforts to achieve data-driven market monitoring by competent authorities.