The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has found the peer review report of the procedures for the scrutiny and approval of prospectuses by national competent authorities (NCAs) to be satisfactory. However, according to the report published on Thursday, 21 July, there is still room for efficiency improvements in respect of some NCAs’ approval processes.
The Prospectus Regulation (PR) is an essential step and a building block of the Capital Markets Union (CMU), since it promotes convergence of supervision and approval of prospectuses, standardising and clarifying areas of divergence.
The Prospectus Regulation requires ESMA to organise at least one peer review, which was published the same day.
According to ESMA, NCAs generally review prospectuses in a satisfactory manner, although they do so in different ways. It noted that the review has often been made stricter, especially for high-risk prospectuses. However, the notion of additional criteria that NCAs may apply during the review process remains unclear. ESMA therefore invites the European Commission to address this issue together with technical assistance from ESMA, if necessary.
Finally, ESMA believes that there is scope for improving the efficiency of the approval processes used by some NCAs.
To access the Peer Review: https://aeur.eu/f/2qz (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)