ESMA publishes fourth annual report on use of sanctions for UCITS

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, today publishes its 2020 report on the use of supervisory sanctions by National Competent Authorities (NCAs) under the Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferrable Securities (UCITS) Directive. 

The number of NCAs issuing sanctions (penalties and/or measures) increased slightly to 17 compared to 2019. A total of 100 sanctions were issued during 2020, for a total amount of €1.1M showing a declining trend in the financial amount of sanctions issued since 2018.

The data gathered under the sanction reports continues to show that the sanctioning powers are not equally used among NCAs and, except for certain NCAs, the number and amount of sanctions issued at national level seems relatively low.

The UCITS sanctions report published today contains an overview of the applicable legal framework and information on the penalties and measures imposed by NCAs in accordance with Article 99e of the UCITS Directive from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. NCAs submit data on the use of sanctions to ESMA, which forms the basis of the annual aggregated report.

Next steps

ESMA continues its work to foster supervisory convergence in the application of the UCITS Directive and will issue separate reports on an annual basis for future reporting periods.