Regulation 2025/914 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 as regards the scope of the rules for benchmarks, the use in the Union of benchmarks provided by an administrator located in a third country, and certain reporting requirements - Main contents

Official Journal

of the European Union

EN

L series

2025/914

19.5.2025

Reporting requirements play a key role in ensuring proper monitoring and correct enforcement of legislation. It is therefore important to streamline those requirements in order to limit the administrative burden and to ensure that they fulfil the purpose for which they were intended.

Under Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3), all administrators of benchmarks, regardless of the systemic relevance of those benchmarks or the amount of financial instruments or contracts that use those benchmarks as reference rates or as performance benchmarks, are to comply with very detailed requirements, including requirements on their organisation, on governance and conflicts of interest, on oversight functions, on input data, on codes of conduct, on reporting of infringements, and on disclosures related to the methodology used and the benchmark statement. Those requirements have put a disproportionate regulatory burden on administrators of smaller benchmarks in the Union considering the aims of Regulation (EU) 2016/1011, i.e. to safeguard financial stability and to avoid negative economic consequences that result from the unreliability of benchmarks. It is therefore necessary to reduce that regulatory burden by focusing on those benchmarks that have the greatest economic relevance for the Union market, i.e. significant and critical benchmarks, and on those benchmarks that contribute to the promotion of key Union policies, i.e. EU Climate Transition and EU Paris-aligned Benchmarks. For that reason, the scope of application of Titles II, III, IV, V and VI of Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 should be reduced to those specific benchmarks. However, the specific provisions in Articles 23a, 23b and 23c serve the purpose of ensuring legal certainty and economic stability where a benchmark is being wound down and should therefore remain applicable to all benchmarks.

Administrators that would be excluded from the scope of application of Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 following the amendments introduced by this amending Regulation and that wish to opt into the regime should be allowed to make a reasoned request to their competent authority to designate one or more of the benchmarks that they offer as significant. That request should provide the competent authority with sufficient information to assess whether the benchmark meets the requirements for designation as significant under the opt-in regime. Where the information provided in the request is inaccurate or misleading, the authority should refuse to designate the benchmark concerned. Administrators of benchmarks that have been authorised to opt in should comply with all the requirements applicable to administrators of significant benchmarks set out in Regulation (EU) 2016/1011.

Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 empowers the Commission to exempt, under specific conditions, spot foreign exchange benchmarks. To ensure...