12.II.4.1 Automated processes

MiFID I required RMs, MTFs, third parties, and proprietary arrangements to facilitate the consolidation of the MiFID I pre- and post-trade data with similar data from other sources.1 MiFID I did not specify how such consolidation needed to take place. CESR clarified that automated processes would support such consolidation.2 Automated processes could include websites. CESR acknowledged that the use of websites as a pre- and post-trade data publication arrangement (proprietary arrangements) was a low-cost publication option. However, CESR considered that websites in particular could prevent access of pre- and post-trade data through an automated process.3 Against this background, CESR stated it only considered MiFID I equity pre- and post-trade data to be made available where it:

CESR stated that a publication arrangement fulfilled the ‘machine-readable’ criteria (point 1) where the data was: (a) in a physical form designed to be read by a computer; (b) in a location on a computer storage device where that location was known in advance by the party wishing to access the data; and (c) in a format that was known in advance by the party wishing to access the data. CESR indicated that publication on a non-machine readable website would not meet the MiFID I requirements.5 CESR did not suggest the publication arrangement to go one step further than being machine readable – namely to ‘push’ the information out to anyone who wants it. CESR did not see a legal basis for demanding such a ‘push service’ based on the MiFID I text. 6 As a consequence, data users needed to pull the data from the machine-readable data source (i.e. take more effort compared to a data source pushing data).