On 3 June 2020, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the goal of which is to improve investor protection and promote the stability and proper functioning of financial markets, opened a consultation on its draft guidelines on outsourcing to cloud service providers.

The purpose of this consultation is to provide guidance on the requirements for outsourcing applicable to financial market actors when they subcontract to cloud service providers.

This consultation invites the competent national authorities and financial market actors as of 3 June 2020 to provide comments on the:

  • governance, documentation, oversight and monitoring mechanisms that firms should have in place;
  • assessment and due diligence which should be undertaken prior to outsourcing;
  • minimum elements that outsourcing and sub-outsourcing agreements should include;
  • exit strategies and the access and audit rights that should to be catered for;
  • notification to competent authorities; and
  • supervision by competent authorities.

ESMA will examine all comments received by 1 September 2020 at the latest, and publish the final report on the guidelines by the first quarter of 2021.

To participate, you may consult the documents available for this consultation by clicking on the following link: https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/consultations/draft-guidelines-outsourcing-cloud-service-providers

By Héloïse CUCHE, Lawyer.