New Focus on Senior Manager Responsibility for Regulatory Reporting

A recent update to one of the FCA’s errors and omission forms has highlighted the importance of senior management responsibility and accountability for regulatory reporting under the SM&CR. This directly impacts firms reporting under EMIR, and is likely to extend to those reporting under MiFIR or SFTR.

The revised Errors and Omissions form template for firms notifying the regulator of reporting errors under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR)was  published by the FCA on 14 July. While the regulator’s FCA’s description of the update was focused on aligning the form to the reporting changes introduced under the REFIT it also included a section wherein firms are required to specify which Senior Management Function (from SMF 1 to SMF 29) is accountable for EMIR reporting. 

This should come as a warning sign for firms of the FCA’s interest in holding individual senior managers responsible for reporting failures in the wider context of the Senior Managers & Certification Regime. Although the approach has not (at the time of writing) been reflected in errors and omissions forms under other regimes, it would be surprising if they did not follow suit.

We encourage firms in scope of the MiFIR, EMIR or SFTR reporting regimes to:

• Confirm among all relevant stakeholders which Senior Management Function is responsible for complete, timely and accurate reporting – acting now may save some difficult conversations later;
• Ensure that responsibility for regulatory reporting is included in the relevant individual’s Statement of Responsibility; and
• Ensure that the relevant Senior Manager has access to appropriate management information in respect of reporting quality on a regular basis, and that the review of that information and any subsequent action can be evidenced.

How we help

Contact us or call +44 (0)20 7042 0500 to learn more about how we can help you address these regulatory requirements with our:

• range of trade and transaction reporting reporting solutions from one-off logic specification reviews and assessments of systems and controls around your reporting framework, to regular, cost-effective analysis of your MiFIR and EMIR reports to identify issues relating to the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of reports.  We also offer analysis that includes a wide range of management information relating to the quality of reporting as well as industry benchmarking to assist senior managers with their ongoing oversight. 
• practical suite of SM&CR solutions, designed to help firms and individuals review and maintain compliance against regulatory requirements and expectations. Our SM&CR services include post-implementation assurance reviews of your firm's current framework and ongoing assistance with employee assessments and training. 

Contact Us

*SFTR in development

Additional Resources

• Alert: Extension of SM&CR Implementation Period for Solo-Regulated Firms
• Resource page: Trade & Transaction Reporting
• Resource page: SM&CR
• Training: SM&CR, Conduct Rules and EMIR training courses