ESMA_QA_2799
Status: ✅ Answer Published
Link to ESMA Q&A tool: https://www.esma.europa.eu/publications-data/questions-answers/2799
Regulatory Context
Regulation : MIF2
Level 1 Regulation: Directive 2014/65/EU - Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II)
Level 2 Regulation: Regulation 2017/565 - MiFID II Delegated Regulation
Level 3 Regulation: No information available
Topic: Suitability
Subject Matter: Attribution of investment advice in split or system-supported workflows (personal recommendation vs suitability statement)
Question
Submission Date: 10 March 2026
In practice, investment firms may apply “tandem” or split workflows where one staff member conducts the client meeting, gathers the client’s circumstances and communicates/explains a concrete course of action to the client, while another staff member and/or a partly automated system performs the suitability assessment, approval and/or generates/transmits the suitability statement.
Against this background, could ESMA clarify, under MiFID II and relevant Level-2 measures, the EU-law criteria for determining whether the staff member who leads the client interaction and explains the recommendation is already providing investment advice, or whether that activity can be regarded as acting under supervision?
In particular:
-
For the attribution of investment advice, is the decisive element who communicates the personal recommendation to the client, rather than who technically generates/approves/transmits the suitability statement?
-
In split workflows, what organisational minimum features are expected to evidence “under supervision” (e.g. explicit assignment of the supervisory role, timely intervention capability, documented review/approval/sign-off), where the supervised staff member communicates the personal recommendation?
ESMA Answer
Answer Date: 31-03-2026
Dear Sir, Thank you for contacting ESMA. The selection of questions to be developed into policy Q&As is done according to a number of criteria, which include the following:
Type of stakeholder: Questions received from investors’ and regulated firms’ associations, will be prioritised over questions from individual firms. Level of public attention: Topics receiving a higher number of questions will have a higher priority. Relevance of the issue: Questions addressing matters with high market impact, important legal risks and significant cross-border effects will have a higher priority.
We would like to inform you that your suggested questions do not appear to be amongst the ones considered of higher priority, at least at this stage. This means that, in view of the number of questions received by ESMA, we are unable to provide you with any further feedback to your question, for the moment. We thank you for your input and invite you to monitor our website where we will continue to publish further Q&As, and other forms of guidance, with the purpose of ensuring the consistent and effective day-to-day application of Union law within ESMA’s remit. Kind regards, ESMA
This document was automatically extracted from the ESMA EMIR Q&A database.