The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, is today releasing the Final Report on the feedback received to the 2022 Call for Evidence on pre-hedging.

ESMA concludes that pre-hedging is a voluntary market practice which might give rise to conflicts of interest or abusive behaviours. Whereas ESMA does not find arguments to ban this practice at this stage, it also flags that these risks should be considered when issuing any future guidance.

ESMA committed to provide guidance on pre-hedging in the Final Report on the Market Abuse Regulation review.