Art. 8 Additional requirements in relation to placing | RTS on CASP conflicts of interest | MiCA

This article zooms in on a specific and particularly conflict-prone scenario: where a crypto-asset service provider is engaged in placing services.

Building on the broader conflict of interest framework established in earlier articles, it identifies the situations that are especially likely to generate conflicts in this context — such as when the provider also handles pricing, order execution, or research, or when it is placing crypto-assets issued by itself or a group entity.

It then requires providers to put internal arrangements in place that ring-fence these activities from one another, and to maintain a centralised procedure for tracking all placing operations.

Important points:

Establish internal arrangements to ensure that pricing decisions do not favour the provider's own interests, connected persons, or one client group at the expense of another.
Prevent staff serving investment clients from being directly involved in pricing or allocation decisions made for issuer clients.
Maintain a centralised procedure to identify and record all placing operations, including when the provider first became aware of them.

1. For the purposes of identifying the types of conflict of interest that arise where the crypto-asset service provider provides placing services, crypto-asset service providers shall take into account, without prejudice to Article 79(2) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, the following situations:
  1. the crypto-asset service provider is also offering pricing services in relation to the offer of crypto-assets;
  2. the crypto-asset service provider is also providing execution of orders for crypto-assets on behalf of clients and research services;
  3. the crypto-asset service provider is placing crypto-assets of which itself or an entity from its group is the issuer.
1. Crypto-asset service providers shall establish, implement and maintain internal arrangements to ensure all of the following:
  1. that the pricing of the offer does not promote the interests of other clients of the crypto-asset service provider or the crypto-asset service provider’s own interests, in a way that may conflict with the issuer client’s interests;
  2. that the pricing of the offer does not promote the interests of the issuer client’s, the crypto-asset service provider’s own interests or the interests of a connected person, in a way that may conflict with other clients’ interests;
  3. the prevention of a situation where persons responsible for providing services to the crypto-asset service provider’s investment clients, or deciding which products should be included in the list of products offered or recommended by the crypto-asset service provider, are directly involved in decisions about pricing to the issuer client;
  4. the prevention of a situation where persons responsible for providing services to the crypto-asset service provider’s investment clients are directly involved in decisions about recommendations to the issuer client on allocation;
  5. the prevention of the exercise of staking rights without prior consent of the investment client.
1. Crypto-asset service providers shall have in place a centralised procedure to identify all their placing operations, including the date on which the crypto-asset service provider was informed of potential placing operations.