European Single Access Point: what it means for sustainability data

At the end of October, the three European Supervisory Authorities (the European Banking Authority, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, and the European Securities and Markets Authority) (the "ESAs") published a final report on the European Single Access Point ("ESAP").

This new report sets out the draft implementing technical standards which will inform the functionalities of ESAP and the tasks of its 'collection bodies'. The report contains two draft standards dealing with technical items such as automated validations, electronic seals and sector and entity classifications. To put this report into context, we unpack what ESAP is and how it fits into the EU's plan to strengthen its capital markets.

What is ESAP?

ESAP will be an EU-wide platform on which financial, regulatory and sustainability information of EU companies will be filed in a standardised digital format. Information that companies are required to disclose under an initial list of thirty-five pieces of EU legislation will be made available on ESAP for market participants to access for free. Among other things, this information includes:

• financial statements and audit reports;
• sustainability statements and assurance reports;
• audit firms’ annual transparency reports; and
• sanctions imposed on auditors and firms by national authorities.

Through the platform, users will be able to carry out searches in all official languages of the EU, view a company's information, and download documents (in large volumes if needed).

The ESAP will not introduce any new regulatory requirements for companies, as all the information to be disclosed should already be publicly available. However, as information will need to be disclosed in a specific machine-readable format, we expect there will be some initial practical compliance challenges for EU companies once the ESAP is operational. 

Why is the EU developing the ESAP?

To date, the EU's financial and sustainability disclosure regulatory landscape has required companies to publish a vast number of documents, particulars, and datasets. The collection, storage, and dissemination of these disclosures has been fragmented, with market participants having to access a myriad of national websites to obtain the information they need to make investment decisions. As such, it has often been challenging for market participants to grasp the full picture of a company's performance.

The ESAP will help to address this problem by consolidating the information that EU companies must disclose in a single place. ESAP is part of the EU's Capital Markets Plan and Green Deal, which aim to improve the sustainability and competitiveness of the EU's capital markets by pursuing digitalisation (for more detail on 'Europe's digital ambitions' see our post here).

How does it work?

The ESAP is a 'two-tier' system: companies will first submit the information to be included to 'collection bodies' (the EU authorities forming the ESAs and national competent authorities). The collection bodies will be responsible for overseeing the collection of this information and validating that companies' data is extractable and machine readable (among other procedural checks), but these bodies will not carry out substantive checks on the quality of the disclosures. The collection bodies will then upload the information into ESAP.

ESAP will eventually be the single collection, storage and dissemination platform for information disclosed under an initial list of nineteen EU regulations and sixteen EU directives. New information can be made public on ESAP in accordance with new EU legislation on an ongoing basis. Information is expected to come into scope of ESAP in three phases:

• Phase 1 (from 10 July 2026): information required under the Transparency Directive, Prospectus Regulation, and the Short Selling Regulation will come into scope.
• Phase 2 (from 10 January 2028): information required under ten pieces of legislation – including under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) (including information required by the EU Taxonomy), the EU Accounting Directive (as amended by CSRD), and the EU Market Abuse Regulation – will come into scope.
• Phase 3 (from 10 January 2030): information required under the remaining twenty pieces of legislation – including the EU Green Bonds Regulation, the Audit Directive, and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) – will come into scope.

As CS3D came into force after the ESAP, it is not listed in the original Annex of information to be included on the centralised electronic access point. Nevertheless, Article 17 CS3D requires member states to ensure that annual statements produced pursuant to CS3D are submitted to the ESAP from 1 January 2029.

The ESAP is expected to be operational from 10 July 2027 at the latest.

The authors would like to thank Sophie Pamplin for her contribution.