The size thresholds for the Large in Scale (LIS) waiver are calculated by ESMA based on the liquidity of each instrument. This mechanism protects institutional investors against market impact.

Article 3 of MiFIR requires regulated markets, MTFs, and multilateral trading systems to make public the current bid and ask prices and the depth of trading interest for equity instruments. This publication must occur in real time during trading hours.

The standard deferral period for Large in Scale, illiquid, or SSTI-exceeding transactions is T+2 before 7:00 PM. This regime allows publication to be delayed to protect actors who commit their capital to providing market liquidity.

The Double Volume Cap is a mechanism that limits the use of waivers by stipulating that transactions executed under a waiver may not represent more than 4% of the total volume of an instrument on an individual venue, nor more than 8% of total volume across all dark pools. If these caps are breached, ESMA suspends the waiver for six months.

MiFIR was designed to address two major challenges: the growing fragmentation of trading venues and the opacity of over-the-counter markets. These challenges are fundamental as they affect the transparency and efficiency of European financial markets.

Post-trade transparency fulfils several functions, including execution quality verification, contribution to price discovery, and transaction monitoring by issuers. It is therefore not limited to execution quality verification alone.

Post-trade publication deadlines have been progressively tightened. They were initially set at fifteen minutes, then reduced to five minutes in January 2021. For equity instruments, they were reduced to one minute since the 2024 reforms, not in January 2021.

Pre-trade transparency concerns information available before the transaction, such as bid and ask prices. Post-trade transparency concerns information about completed transactions, such as transaction price and volume.