(1)

Article 62 of Regulation (EU) No 1095/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 establishing a European Supervisory Authority (European Securities and Markets Authority) (2) provides that the revenues of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) should also consist of fees paid to ESMA in cases specified in Union legislation alongside contributions from national public authorities and a subsidy from the Union.

(2)

To ensure an efficient use of ESMA’s budget and, at the same time, alleviate the financial burden for Member States and the Union, it is necessary to ensure that credit rating agencies pay at least all the costs related to their supervision. Any deficit that may occur during 1 financial year should be recovered from credit rating agencies in the following year.

(3)

An annual supervisory fee should be charged to credit rating agencies exceeding a certain threshold of turnover in order to provide for budgetary certainty for both ESMA and the credit rating agencies concerned. Annual supervisory fees should not become a burden for new entrants to the credit rating market. Moreover, small credit rating agencies are expected to engender significantly less supervisory costs than larger ones. It would be therefore proportionate to fully exempt small credit rating agencies from paying the annual supervisory fee where the credit rating agency or the group of credit rating agencies to which it belong do not exceed a certain threshold of turnover.

(4)

In order to ensure a fair and clear allocation of fees which, at the same time, reflects the actual administrative burden per supervised entity, the supervisory fee should be calculated according to the credit rating agencies’ turnover, generated from rating activities and ancillary services, since the cost of supervision is higher for larger credit rating agencies than for smaller ones. Moreover, the provision of ancillary services requires additional supervisory effort as possible conflicts of interests resulting from the provision of ancillary services need monitoring. Credit rating agencies should not circumvent the fair allocation of fees according to this Regulation by reallocating revenue to other entities within their group in order to reduce their fee contributions. ESMA should monitor and report any critical developments in this respect.

(5)

A registration fee should be charged to credit rating agencies established in the Union to reflect ESMA’s costs for processing the application for registration. The complexity of an application and costs associated to assessing the application increase where a credit rating agency applies for issuing ratings for structured finance instruments or plans to endorse ratings from third country agencies or has branches. Therefore the registration fee should be calculated according to those factors. The processing costs also depend to a large extent on the size of the applicant credit rating agency. As the future turnover of a new credit rating agency would not be known at the moment of its application for registration, the number of employees should replace turnover as a common basis for calculation of all credit rating agencies.

(6)

This Regulation should provide for fees to be charged to third country credit rating agencies that apply for certification in the Union according to Article 5(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 in order to cover their certification and annual supervisory costs. In this regard, ESMA’s necessary expenditure relates to the certification of such third country credit rating agencies according to Article 5(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 which follows a similar procedure as the one applicable to the registration of credit rating agencies established in the Union, as well as ESMA’s expenditure necessary for the supervision of certified credit rating agencies.

(7)

Credit rating agencies should be reimbursed a percentage of the fee initially charged for their registration or certification when withdrawing their application during the registration or certification process as ESMA’s costs for processing the application would be lower in such cases.

(8)

In view of possible future developments, it is appropriate for the thresholds for exempting credit rating agencies from paying annual supervisory fees and the amounts of registration and certification fees to be reviewed and updated as necessary. The Commission should assess the correct application of these measures within 4 years from the entry into force of this Regulation and report to the European Parliament and the Council on the possible need to review it.

(9)

National competent authorities incur costs when carrying out tasks delegated to them by ESMA in accordance with Article 30 of Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 and when providing assistance to ESMA in the other cases specified in that Regulation. The fees to be charged by ESMA to credit rating agencies should also cover those costs. In order to avoid that competent authorities incur loss or realise profit from carrying out delegated tasks or from assisting ESMA, ESMA should reimburse the actual costs incurred by that national competent authority.

(10)

This Regulation should form the basis for ESMA’s right to charge fees to credit rating agencies. In order to immediately facilitate effective and efficient supervisory and enforcement activity, it should enter into force on the third day following its publication,