Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the CouncilShow full title

Article 20 Specific requirements for OTFs

1. Member States shall require that an investment firm and a market operator operating an OTF establishes arrangements preventing the execution of client orders in an OTF against the proprietary capital of the investment firm or market operator operating the OTF or from any entity that is part of the same group or legal person as the investment firm or market operator.

2. Member States shall permit an investment firm or market operator operating an OTF to engage in matched principal trading in bonds, structured finance products, emission allowances and certain derivatives only where the client has consented to the process.

An investment firm or market operator operating an OTF shall not use matched principal trading to execute client orders in an OTF in derivatives pertaining to a class of derivatives that has been declared subject to the clearing obligation in accordance with Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012.

An investment firm or market operator operating an OTF shall establish arrangements ensuring compliance with the definition of matched principal trading in point (38) of Article 4(1).

3. Member States shall permit an investment firm or market operator operating an OTF to engage in dealing on own account other than matched principal trading only with regard to sovereign debt instruments for which there is not a liquid market.

4. Member States shall not allow the operation of an OTF and of a systematic internaliser to take place within the same legal entity. An OTF shall not connect with a systematic internaliser in a way which enables orders in an OTF and orders or quotes in a systematic internaliser to interact. An OTF shall not connect with another OTF in a way which enables orders in different OTFs to interact.

5. Member States shall not prevent an investment firm or a market operator operating an OTF from engaging another investment firm to carry out market making on that OTF on an independent basis.

For the purposes of this Article, an investment firm shall not be deemed to be carrying out market making on an OTF on an independent basis if it has close links with the investment firm or market operator operating the OTF.

6. Member States shall require that the execution of orders on an OTF is carried out on a discretionary basis.

An investment firm or market operator operating an OTF shall exercise discretion only in either or both of the following circumstances:

(a) when deciding to place or retract an order on the OTF they operate;

(b) when deciding not to match a specific client order with other orders available in the systems at a given time, provided it is in compliance with specific instructions received from a client and with its obligations in accordance with Article 27.

For the system that crosses client orders the investment firm or market operator operating the OTF may decide if, when and how much of two or more orders it wants to match within the system. In accordance with paragraphs 1, 2, 4 and 5 and without prejudice to paragraph 3, with regard to a system that arranges transactions in non-equities, the investment firm or market operator operating the OTF may facilitate negotiation between clients so as to bring together two or more potentially compatible trading interest in a transaction.

That obligation shall be without prejudice to Articles 18 and 27.

7. The competent authority may require, either when an investment firm or market operator requests to be authorised for the operation of an OTF or on ad-hoc basis, a detailed explanation why the system does not correspond to and cannot operate as a regulated market, MTF, or systematic internaliser, a detailed description as to how discretion will be exercised, in particular when an order to the OTF may be retracted and when and how two or more client orders will be matched within the OTF. In addition, the investment firm or market operator of an OTF shall provide the competent authority with information explaining its use of matched principal trading. The competent authority shall monitor an investment firm’s or market operator’s engagement in matched principal trading to ensure that it continues to fall within the definition of such trading and that its engagement in matched principal trading does not give rise to conflicts of interest between the investment firm or market operator and its clients.

8. Member States shall ensure that Articles 24, 25, 27 and 28 are applied to the transactions concluded on an OTF.