1.
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When considering the nature of its business, an investment firm shall consider the following, where applicable:
(a)
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the regulatory status of the firm and, where applicable, of its DEA clients, including the regulatory requirements to which it is subject as an investment firm under Directive 2014/65/EU, and other relevant regulatory requirements;
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(b)
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the firm's roles in the market, including whether it is a market maker and whether it executes orders for clients or rather only trades on its own account;
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(c)
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the level of automation of trading and of other processes or activities of the firm;
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(d)
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the types and regulatory status of the instruments, products and asset classes that the firm trades in;
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(e)
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the types of strategies the firm employs and the risks contained in these strategies for the firm's own risk management and for the fair and orderly functioning of the markets; the firm shall consider in particular the nature of these strategies, such as market making or arbitrage, and whether those strategies are long-term, short-term, directional, or non-directional;
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(f)
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the latency sensitivity of the firm's strategies and trading activities;
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(g)
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the type and regulatory status of trading venues and other liquidity pools accessed and in particular whether the trading activity on those trading venues and other liquidity pools are lit, dark or over-the-counter trading;
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(h)
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the connectivity solutions of the firm and whether it accesses trading venues as a member, as a DEA client or as a DEA provider;
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(i)
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the extent to which the firm relies on third parties for the development and maintenance of its algorithms or trading systems and whether these algorithms or trading systems are self-developed, co-developed with a third party, or purchased from, or outsourced to, a third party;
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(j)
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the firm's ownership and governance structure, how it is structured organisationally and operationally, and whether it is a partnership, subsidiary, publicly traded company, or otherwise;
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(k)
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the firm's risk management, compliance, audit structure and organisation;
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(l)
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the date of establishment of the firm and level of experience and competency of its personnel and whether it is recently established.
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