​On 28 September 2016, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange as operator of the Luxembourg officially appointed mechanism (“OAM”) announced that from 1 January 2017 it will accept legal entity identifiers (“LEI”) as the exclusive identifiers for issuers. This announcement was made following the publication of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1437 of 19 May 2016 supplementing Directive 2004/109/EC on the harmonisation of transparency requirements in relation to information about issuers whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market, as amended (the “Transparency Directive”).

The change announced will result in the obligation for all issuers with Luxembourg as their home Member State within the meaning of Article 2(1)(i) of the Transparency Directive to obtain an LEI by the end of this year.

Luxembourg incorporated issuers

To obtain an LEI, issuers incorporated in Luxembourg must connect to the LuxCSD self-registration service for LEIs on the Global Markets Entity Identifier (“GMEI”) portal*. Registration can be made by a primary party (“PP”) (i.e. an employee of the firm for which registration is made, or an employee of the firm which has a controlling interest over the entity being registered) or an assisting party (i.e. other than a PP having an explicit permission from the PP).

Information to be provided in order to register includes legal name, registered address, headquarters address, entity status and the entity's legal form. The registered address of the entity should be provided and listed according to the documentation of incorporation. It is common for registered addresses to be care of an agent of service and therefore should not be regarded as a mailing contact or a headquarters address for the entity.

The LEI assignment process begins after payment is processed and validation against public sources has occurred. Once record validation is completed, the record will have an LEI assigned and will be transferred from the Staging Database to the GMEI utility Issued Database. It takes approximately three business days from the time the request for LEI assignment is received to the time that the record is listed in the GMEI utility Issued Database.

Foreign (other than Luxembourg) incorporated issuers

Issuers incorporated outside of Luxembourg but having elected Luxembourg as their home Member State within the meaning of Article 2(1)(i) of the Transparency Directive are advised to enquire in the jurisdiction of incorporation about the practicalities of obtaining an LEI.

Any issuer that is in doubt as to whether it has elected Luxembourg as its home Member State is invited to follow this link:

https://supervisedentities.apps.cssf.lu/index.html?language=enHome

*Link to the GMEI portal:https://www.gmeiutility.org/luxcsd