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EuropeanIssuers responded to the European Commission’s targeted consultation on the establishment of the European Single Access Point (ESAP) for financial and non-financial information publicly disclosed by companies.
While EuropeanIssuers welcomes the establishment of the ESAP, its introduction is not a priority. The main focus should be kept on the initiatives helping European companies to recapitalise in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. This position was highlighted in EuropeanIssuers’ position paper on the Capital Markets Union New Action Plan.
EuropeanIssuers Secretary General Florence Bindelle expressed: “The establishment of the ESAP can be beneficial in providing better access to financial information for investors. However, its scope and goal should be clearly defined in order to avoid additional reporting burdens and costs for companies.”
More particularly, EuropeanIssuers put the accent on the need to rely upon clearly defined information, and building on existing OAMs, thus limiting the requirements to what already now is to be filled with the national authority. Moreover, companies should not be held liable for any problem in the transmission of information between the national authority and the ESAP. Furthermore, EuropeanIssuers urges to avoid that the ESAP is used to introduce additional pieces of legislation or new reporting formats.
Finally, EuropeanIssuers advises against the inclusion of non-financial information in the scope of the ESAP, unless already filed in the OAM according to national legislation (i.e., when NFI is part of the management report). Legislation on non-financial information is currently evolving and it is not mature enough to be streamlined. Therefore its inclusion should follow in due course when the general legal framework is established.
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