EMIR EU & UK

All financial counterparties (FCs) and non-financial counterparties (NFCs) established in the EU must report their derivative contracts under EMIR. Both counterparties to a trade are in scope, as are CCPs. Since EMIR Refit, an FC facing a small non-financial counterparty (NFC-) is responsible, and legally liable, for reporting the OTC derivative on behalf of both parties. The same allocation of responsibility applies under UK EMIR for UK-established counterparties.

Derivative trades must be reported by T+1 — no later than the end of the working day following the conclusion, modification or termination of the contract. This applies to both OTC and exchange-traded derivatives, and to both EU EMIR and UK EMIR. Reports go to a registered trade repository (TR): one registered with ESMA for EU EMIR, or with the FCA for UK EMIR.

EMIR Refit reporting standards went live on 29 April 2024 in the EU and on 30 September 2024 in the UK. From those dates, all new reports had to use the revised field set and ISO 20022 XML format. Outstanding trades had to be brought up to the new standard within a six-month transition period — by 26 October 2024 in the EU, and by the end of the FCA's equivalent 180-day window in 2025.

An EMIR Refit trade report contains 203 reportable fields in the EU and 204 in the UK, up from 129 before Refit. The UK's additional field is an optional Execution Agent identifier. Both regimes mandate ISO 20022 XML as the submission format and adopt global CDE (Critical Data Elements), the UTI and the UPI, replacing the previous CSV-based formats.

Delegated reporting is where one party — typically a broker, bank or third-party service provider — submits EMIR reports to a trade repository on a counterparty's behalf. Delegation is expressly permitted under Article 9 of EMIR. Except where the mandatory FC/NFC- allocation applies, delegation does not transfer legal responsibility: the delegating counterparty remains liable for the timeliness and accuracy of its reports and should supervise the delegate's output.

Yes — NFCs established in the EU (or UK, under UK EMIR) are in scope of the reporting obligation. For OTC derivatives, an NFC below the clearing thresholds (NFC-) benefits from mandatory allocation: its FC counterparty is responsible and liable for reporting both sides. NFCs above the thresholds (NFC+), NFCs facing other NFCs, and NFCs trading exchange-traded derivatives must ensure their own reports are made, though they may delegate submission.

A Unique Transaction Identifier (UTI) is a code of up to 52 characters that identifies a single derivative transaction so that both counterparties' reports can be paired at the trade repository. EMIR Refit adopted the global UTI standard and a generation waterfall that determines which party generates it — for example, the CCP for cleared trades, or the FC when facing an NFC. The UTI must be shared in time for both sides to report by T+1.

Misreporting under EMIR can lead to supervisory action and financial penalties, imposed by national competent authorities in the EU or by the FCA in the UK. Both regimes also expect firms to notify their regulator of significant reporting errors and omissions and to remediate historical misreporting through corrections and, where required, back-reporting. Reconciliation breaks and rejected (NACKed) submissions left unresolved are recurring findings in regulatory data-quality reviews.