Delay by one year of ESEF requirements for listed companies
Press release 21/01
The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) hereby informs listed companies that1 Member States are allowed to delay by one year the application of the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) requirements in relation to annual financial reports. For issuers2 subject to the Transparency Law, it will be made use in Luxembourg of the 1-year postponement option of the ESEF requirements. These requirements thus apply to the annual financial reports for periods beginning on or after 1 January 2021. For periods preceding that date, issuers may already apply the ESEF requirements on a voluntary basis.
Initially, the regulatory technical standards3 (RTS) on the ESEF were intended to apply to all annual financial reports drawn up in accordance with article 3 of the Transparency Law for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2020. Further to the above-mentioned decision, Member States have been granted the possibility to defer the mandatory application to the annual financial reports for periods beginning on or after 1 January 2021.
In this context, the CSSF would like to remind issuers that, as from the application of the ESEF requirements, the entire annual financial report shall be drawn up in accordance with the RTS on ESEF. As such it shall be prepared in XHTML format and, where annual financial reports include IFRS consolidated financial statements, issuers shall mark up those consolidated financial statements using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).
Statutory auditors are required to check the compliance of the financial statements with the mentioned requirements and to provide an audit opinion on whether the financial statements comply with these requirements.
More information on the mentioned requirements as well as the related reporting manual for issuers can be found in the ESEF section on ESMA’s website.
1 following the agreement of the European Parliament and the Council to an amendment of the Directive 2004/109/EC
2 Issuers for which Luxembourg is the home Member State pursuant to the law of 11 January 2008 on transparency requirements (Transparency Law)
3 Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/815 of 17 December 2018 supplementing Directive 2004/109/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to regulatory technical standards on the specification of a single electronic reporting format