Welcome to the monthly capital markets update, a briefing from our capital markets practice area rounding up the month’s regulatory developments within the equity and debt capital markets and looking ahead to future developments.
Malta Update
UPDATE NUMBER 09/2025/01
On 5th September 2025 the MFSA issued a circular addressed to market participants informing them of the transposition of part of the requirements of the European Single Access Point (“ESAP”) package, as well as amendments to the definition of a takeover bid.
The circular explains the implementation of the ESAP (introduced by Directive (EU) 2023/2864 (“ESAP Directive”) and Regulation (EU) 2023/2859) which entered into force in January 2024. ESMA must establish and operate a single access point by July 2027, while Member States must implement national measures by January 2026, with certain provisions under the Transparency Directive due earlier. This resulted in amendments to the Capital Market Rules (“CMRs”) in order to transpose part of Article 3 of the ESAP Directive.
From July 2026, issuers will be required, when disclosing regulated information under Article 21 of the Transparency Directive, to also submit that information to the ESAP collection body, which in this case is the Malta Stock Exchange (“MSE”).
Through our involvement in the Forum of Company Secretaries, we have been informed that the MFSA is currently liaising with the MSE on the manner in which the uploads will take place (possibly, via a new upload portal). Information will need to be tagged as regulated information or non-regulated information, standardized across the European Union.
CMR 11.3 has been amended to align the wording of the CMRs with the wording in the Takeover Bids Directive.
For a detailed view of the amendments to the CMRs please refer to the Circular.
European Union Update
UPDATE NUMBER 09/2025/02
ESMA has updated the ESEF Regulatory Technical Standard (“RTS”) to include the 2025 IFRS taxonomy, which reflects two new accounting standards: IFRS 18 (on presentation and disclosure in financial statements) and IFRS 19 (on subsidiaries without public accountability).
IFRS 18 will replace the IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements from 1 January 2027, with early adoption permitted.
To help issuers ESMA will make both the current IAS 1 taxonomy and the new IFRS 18 taxonomy available for use before IFRS 18 becomes mandatory. The 2025 taxonomy itself will apply from financial years starting on or after 1 January 2026, though companies may also use it for 2025 reports if the RTS is adopted in time.
Importantly, the new taxonomy elements linked to IFRS 18 and 19 can only be used once these standards are formally endorsed at EU level, which is expected in early 2026.
