The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on Tuesday published a statement saying it will deprioritise supervisory actions related to the mechanical issuance of invoices under the RTS on reasonable commercial basis.
In practical terms, ESMA is telling national supervisors to spend less time enforcing invoice-process requirements tied to market-data pricing. Firms handling billing mechanics under the regime have greater flexibility on that narrow compliance task.
The RTS on reasonable commercial basis sits within the MiFIR review package. It converts existing ESMA guidance on market-data costs into binding legal obligations, covering fees, access conditions, contractual terms and delayed-data provisions. Invoice mechanics are the processes through which market-data charges are administered and evidenced.
The move aligns with a wider reprioritisation cycle in Brussels. In October 2025, the European Commission identified 115 Level 2 empowerments as non-essential and said it would not adopt them before 1 October 2027. ESMA’s own chair wrote to the Commission in March 2025 confirming that certain deliverables would be deprioritised or postponed due to resource constraints.
The statement, referenced ESMA74-276584410-11272, was circulated through ESMA’s newsletter on the same day.
