(1)

Pursuant to Article 18 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, issuers, emission allowance market participants, auction platforms, auctioneers, auction monitors (‘entities’) and any person acting on their behalf or on their account are required to draw up and promptly update a list of all persons who have access to inside information and who are working for them under a contract of employment, or otherwise performing tasks through which they have access to inside information, including advisers, accountants or credit rating agencies (‘insider list’) in accordance with a precise format. The establishment of a precise format, including the use of standard templates, should facilitate the uniform application of the requirement to draw up and promptly update insider lists. The establishment of such a precise format should also ensure that competent authorities are provided with the information necessary to fulfil the task of protecting the integrity of the financial markets and investigate possible market abuse.

(2)

Article 18(9) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 empowered the Commission to determine the precise format of insider lists and the format for updating insider lists which the Commission did in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/347 (2). Regulation (EU) 2019/2115 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) amended Article 18 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 to introduce the possibility for issuers whose financial instruments are admitted to trading on an SME growth market to maintain only a list of persons who, due to the nature of their function or position within the issuer, have regular access to inside information, while giving Member States the option of introducing a requirement for those issuers to provide more extensive insider lists that include all persons who have access to inside information, where justified by specific national market integrity concerns. Regulation (EU) 2019/2115 also introduced in Article 18(6) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 a new empowerment for the Commission to determine the format of those more extensive insider lists and required that such a format be proportionate and represent a lighter administrative burden compared to the format determined in accordance with Article 18(9) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (‘alleviated format’). The Commission acted upon that empowerment by adopting Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1210 (4), which repealed Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/347. Regulation (EU) 2024/2809 of the European Parliament and of the Council (5) further amended Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 by deleting the empowerment in Article 18(6) and replacing the empowerment in Article 18(9) with a new empowerment for the Commission to review the implementing technical standards on the format of the insider lists to extend the use of the alleviated format to all insider lists referred to in Article 18(1) and (6), first and second subparagraphs. It follows that Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1210 should be repealed and replaced by a new Regulation.

(3)

To ensure that the drawing up and updating of insider lists impose only a limited administrative burden, while enabling competent authorities to identify persons that have access to inside information and establish links between insiders and persons involved in suspicious trading, the insider lists referred to in Article 18(1) and (6), first and second subparagraphs, of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 should be drawn up and updated in accordance with the alleviated format that has so far applied to the insider lists referred to in Article 18(6), second subparagraph, of that Regulation.

(4)

Pursuant to Article 18 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, persons acting on behalf or on the account of an entity are to draw up and promptly update a list of all persons who have access to inside information that concerns that entity and who are working for them under a contract of employment, or are otherwise performing tasks through which they have access to inside information. To avoid unnecessary duplication of data and to minimise administrative burdens, where a legal person acts on behalf or on the account of an entity (‘third-party service provider’) and has access to inside information which directly concerns that entity, that entity should include in its insider list the details of only one natural person acting as a contact person for that third-party service provider.

(5)

Since multiple pieces of inside information can exist within an entity at the same time, the insider lists referred to in Article 18(1) and (6), second subparagraph, of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 should identify the exact piece of inside information to which the persons referred to in Article 18(1) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 have access. To that end, those insider lists should contain a section specific to each piece of inside information (the ‘event-based section’). Each event-based section should list all persons having access to a specific piece of inside information and, for each person, indicate the date and time when the insider obtained access to that piece of inside information and the date and time when the insider ceased to have access to that piece of inside information. A new section should be added to the insider lists referred to in Article 18(1) and (6), second subparagraph, of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 upon the identification of a new piece of inside information.

(6)

To reduce administrative burdens and avoid duplicative entries in the insider lists referred to in Article 18(1) and (6), second subparagraph, of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 with respect to persons who, due to the nature of their function or position within an entity, have access to all inside information at all times (‘permanent insiders’), it should be possible to list those persons in a supplementary section of the insider list (the ‘permanent insiders’ section’). As that section should be of a different nature to the event-based sections of the insider list, it should not be created each time upon the identification of a new piece of inside information. That section should rather specify the date and time when a permanent insider obtained and ceased to have access to all inside information at all times. An entity that decides to draw up and keep up to date a permanent insiders’ section, should not include the permanent insiders listed therein also in the event-based sections of the insider list, since those insiders are deemed to have access to all inside information at all times.

(7)

Since Article 18(6), first subparagraph, of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 allows issuers whose financial instruments are admitted to trading on an SME growth market to include in their insider lists only those persons who, due to the nature of their function or position within the issuer, have regular access to inside information, the insider lists referred to in that provision should not include separate event-based sections. Instead, they should list all insiders having regular access to inside information and, for each of them, specify the date and time when the insider obtained and ceased to have regular access to inside information. It follows that that list of insiders should not be amended each time upon the emergence of a specific piece of inside information, unless the list of insiders having regular access to inside information changes.

(8)

This Regulation respects the fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and notably the right to protection of personal data. The processing of personal data for the purposes of this Regulation should be carried out in accordance with Union law on the protection of personal data. In that regard, any processing of personal data performed by competent authorities in application of this Regulation should be carried out in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council (6).

(9)

To ensure that the insider lists can be made available to the competent authority as soon as possible upon request and that they can always be updated without delay, insider lists should be kept in an electronic form. The electronic form should ensure that the information included in the insider list is kept confidential. To avoid a disproportionate administrative burden on issuers whose financial instruments are admitted to trading on an SME growth market, such issuers should not be required to draw up and keep up to date the insider list in an electronic form, provided that the completeness, confidentiality and integrity of the information included in the insider list is ensured.

(10)

To reduce the administrative burden associated with the transmission of insider lists to the competent authority, the specific electronic means of transmission should be determined by the competent authorities themselves, while ensuring the confidentiality of those lists.

(11)

The European Data Protection Supervisor was consulted in accordance with Article 42(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council (7) and delivered formal comments on 4 February 2026.

(12)

This Regulation is based on the draft implementing technical standards submitted to the Commission by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

(13)

ESMA has conducted open public consultations on the draft implementing technical standards on which this Regulation is based and requested the advice of the Securities Markets Stakeholder Group established by Article 37 of Regulation (EU) No 1095/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council (8). ESMA did not analyse the potential related costs and benefits as that would have been disproportionate in relation to the expected impact on market participants of the amendments,