Methodology

Data Provenance and Scope

This website is maintained as a research resource for analysing the issuer and instrument scope that may be relevant to EU Market Abuse Regulation Article 17. It combines public instrument reference data with issuer identity, venue metadata, and an issuer-level classification layer, then publishes only sanitized web extracts.

Primary Sources

The core input is ESMA FIRDS instrument reference data. Issuer identity fields are enriched with GLEIF LEI records. Trading venue identifiers are enriched with ISO 10383 MIC metadata and ESMA venue-register fields where available. The underlying regulatory frame is Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 on market abuse. The reference-data fields used for issuer request and approval evidence come from Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/585, commonly referred to as RTS 23.

Scope Construction

ESMA FIRDS is used as the raw instrument-reference layer. This layer is deliberately broader than Article 17 because it contains issuer and instrument records for many venue-traded bonds and equities, including public-sector and supranational issuers. The website therefore does not treat FIRDS presence alone as proof of an ad-hoc disclosure obligation.

Article 17 Identification

The issuer identifier is built at LEI level, even though FIRDS is reported at instrument and venue level. The classification follows a hierarchy. First, issuers whose GLEIF legal-entity status is inactive, or whose LEI registration is retired, annulled, or duplicate, are excluded from the active MAR issuer population. A lapsed LEI registration is not excluded by itself if the GLEIF entity status is still active; it is treated as a stale LEI-maintenance signal rather than evidence that the issuer has ceased to exist. Second, sovereign, central-bank, supranational, public debt-management, and similar public-sector issuers are excluded using GLEIF attributes, issuer-sector metadata, and conservative name rules. Third, non-exempt issuers are identified as Article 17 issuers through strict stock and bond branches. Stocks are ordinary and preference shares with CFI prefixes `ES` and `EP`; broader equity-classified instruments are not treated as stocks. A non-exempt issuer enters the strict set when active stock or bond rows show regulated-market admission. Clean EU/EEA MTF/OTF-only stock or bond cases can also enter the strict set when RTS 23 fields show issuer request or issuer approval evidence. RTS 23 is the regulatory technical standard for financial-instrument reference data under MiFIR. It defines, among other fields, whether the issuer requested or approved admission to trading or trading of the instrument on a venue, and the date of that approval. In ESMA FIRDS XML this appears as fields such as `IssrReq` and `AdmssnApprvlDtByIssr`; in the database they are stored as `issuer_request_flag` and `issuer_approval_date`. These fields are useful because Article 17 scope turns on issuer-level consent/request conditions, while raw FIRDS presence alone can also capture instruments traded without a clean issuer-obligation signal.

Issuers without positive evidence are not forced into or out of Article 17 scope. They are split into assessment categories: review where active MTF evidence exists but strict consent/RM confirmation is missing, out-of-scope where only systematic-internaliser evidence is present, and true review for structured, equity-linked, fund, or otherwise unresolved cases. Third-country MTF/OTF-only issuer-request cases are classified separately and excluded from the strict MAR-obligated set unless there is independent clean disclosure or OAM evidence. This is why the Article 17 filter view separates the strict identified count from broader assessment categories. The main dashboard statistics, top OAM disclosure jurisdictions, stock scope, bond scope, bond type breakdown, and registered issuer/venue downloads are based on strictly identified Article 17 issuers only. The OAM jurisdiction is proxied from ESMA FIRDS `RlvntCmptntAuthrty` for strict issuer views; GLEIF legal jurisdiction is retained separately in issuer downloads.

RTS 23 on EUR-Lex ESMA FIRDS reporting instructions Market Abuse Regulation

Lookup Interpretation

The public "Am I subject to MAR?" lookup searches the classified issuer universe and returns the current classification for each matching LEI. A result labelled "Identified Article 17 issuer" has strict stock or bond evidence. A result labelled "Excluded third-country MTF/OTF issuer-request case" has issuer-consent evidence but no clean strict EU/EEA stock or bond branch. Review labels are data-quality or source-completeness cases, not final legal conclusions. A missing result means the public index found no matching classified active issuer record. A result labelled "Excluded inactive legal entity" means the LEI belongs to an inactive, retired, annulled, or duplicate legal-entity record and is therefore not counted as an active MAR issuer.

Counting Logic

Public statistics distinguish unique ISINs from venue listing rows. This avoids the MIC multiplier problem, where the same security can appear many times because it is admitted to trading or reported across multiple venues. Venue row counts and MIC counts are still shown separately because they describe market structure rather than the number of economically distinct securities.

Instrument Classification

Stocks are counted separately from equity-classified certificates, structured products, equity-linked instruments, and depositary receipts. Bonds are grouped by CFI debt-structure fields for the bond-type breakdown. These bond-type labels describe the instrument structure, not the institutional sector of the issuer.

Research Use and Limitations

The service is intended for research and professional orientation. It is not an official ESMA service and does not provide legal advice. Formal determinations should be checked against the primary regulatory sources and the issuer's own legal analysis. Curated downloads are provided for non-commercial private, academic, and research use; broader use should be based on the applicable terms of the primary source data.