MIFID - Article 34 - Access to central counterparty, clearing and settlement facilities and right to designate settlement system

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Article 34

Access to central counterparty, clearing and settlement facilities and right to designate settlement system

1. Member States shall require that investment firms from other Member States have the right of access to central counterparty, clearing and settlement systems in their territory
for the purposes of finalising or arranging the finalisation of transactions in financial instruments.

Member States shall require that access of those investment firms to such facilities be subject to the same non-discriminatory, transparent and objective criteria as apply to local participants.

Member States shall not restrict the use of those facilities to the clearing and settlement of transactions in financial instruments undertaken on a regulated market or MTF in their territory.

2. Member States shall require that regulated markets in their territory offer all their members or participants the right to designate the system for the settlement of transactions in financial instruments undertaken on that regulated market,
subject to:

(a) such links and arrangements between the designated settlement system and any other system or facility as are necessary to ensure the efficient and economic settlement of the transaction in question; and

(b) agreement by the competent authority responsible for the supervision of the regulated market that technical conditions for settlement of transactions concluded on the regulated market through a settlement system other than that designated by the regulated market are such as to allow the smooth and orderly functioning of financial markets.

This assessment of the competent authority of the regulated market shall be without prejudice to the competencies of the national central banks as overseers of settlement systems or other supervisory authorities on such systems.

The competent authority shall take into account the oversight/supervision already exercised by those institutions in order to avoid undue duplication of control.

3. The rights of investment firms under paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be without prejudice to the right of operators of central counterparty, clearing or securities settlement systems to refuse on legitimate commercial grounds to make the requested services available.