EU · MiFIR · TITLE VIII PROVISION OF SERVICES AND PERFORMANCE OF ACTIVITIES BY THIRD-COUNTRY FIRMS FOLLOWING AN EQUIVALENCE DECISION WITH OR WITHOUT A BRANCH
Article 46 MiFIRGeneral provisions
Lets third-country firms serve EU eligible counterparties and per se professional clients without a branch once registered by ESMA, which requires a Commission equivalence decision, home authorisation and effective supervision, cooperation arrangements and reporting arrangements. It sets ESMA's application timelines, bars Member States from adding requirements while allowing national regimes absent equivalence, and requires firms to tell clients their limits and to offer EU dispute resolution, with annual reporting to ESMA.
Amendments and application dates
| Amending act | Change | Applies from |
|---|---|---|
| Regulation (EU) 2019/2033 | Text amended; Text inserted | by 26 Jun 2021 |
Level 2: delegated and implementing acts
- RTSIn forceLegal basis
AI summaryRTS under MiFIR specifying the information a third-country firm must give ESMA to register to provide services to EU eligible counterparties and professional clients under Article 46, and the format of the information it must give clients about its non-EU status before providing services.
Level 3: ESMA Q&As, guidelines and opinions
- Q&AAnsweredExplicit reference · 90%
AI summaryFor reverse solicitation under Article 42 MiFID II and Article 46 MiFIR, ESMA lists pairs of products that are not in the same category, such as complex versus non-complex debt, listed versus unlisted securities, subordinated versus senior debt, shares versus ETFs, UCITS versus AIFs and PRIIPs with different risk indicators; instruments in different Annex I Section C categories are always different products.
- Q&AAnsweredExplicit reference · 90%
AI summaryFor reverse solicitation under Article 42 MiFID II and Article 46 MiFIR, a third-country firm provides a new investment service if it adds it after 3 January 2018, and may not market new categories of products, judged case by case by type, complexity and riskiness, granularly enough to prevent circumvention of national regimes.
- Q&ALegacy Q&A documentESMA rulebook
AI summaryESMA's consolidated legacy Q&A document (ESMA35-43-349, final version 15 December 2023) on MiFID II investor protection topics, including best execution, suitability, call recording, inducements and research, costs and charges, client categorisation, third-country firms and product governance. It is no longer updated; Q&As from 2024 are in ESMA's Q&A tool.
Commentary
No law-firm commentary is linked to this provision yet.
219 more documents relate to MiFIR as a whole without naming an article.
UK counterpart
- Article 46 UK MiFIR · General provisions
Revocation enacted by Financial Services and Markets Act 2023; no commencement date yet.
DivergedExplicit referenceEU changes after exit: Regulation (EU) 2019/2033 (by 26 Jun 2021). UK changes after onshoring: Financial Services Act 2021 (from 1 Jul 2021). UK revocation enacted (Financial Services and Markets Act 2023), not yet commenced.
Version history
- From 26 Jun 2021
- From 2 Jul 2014 to 26 Jun 2021
Each entry is a consolidated version of the act on EUR-Lex in which this provision appears. The text itself is on the official site.