Update 2020 of the basic taxonomy adopted as ESEF Regulation

On 18 December 2020, the third version of the Commission’s delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/1989 of 6 November 2020 supplementing Directive 2004/109/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards regulatory technical standards for the specification of a single electronic reporting format (ESEF) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation amends the previous version of Regulation (EU) 2019/815 of 16 December 2019 (we reported). This update of the ESEF Regulation adopts the new version of ESMA’s basic taxonomy to be used for ESEF. The basic taxonomy is now based on the 2020 annual update of the IFRS Taxonomy published by the IFRS Foundation in March 2020.

The Taxonomy Update 2020 applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2021. However, issuers are allowed to adopt the basic taxonomy 2020 specified in this Regulation for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2020.

The basic taxonomy to be used for ESEF is developed by ESMA and builds on or is an extension of the IFRS Foundation taxonomy. The IFRS Foundation annually updates the IFRS Taxonomy to reflect, amongst other developments, the issuance of new IFRSs or the amendment of existing IFRSs, the analysis of disclosures commonly reported in practice, or improvements to general content or technology of the IFRS Taxonomy. Therefore, the regulatory technical standards are updated accordingly to reflect each annual update of the IFRS Taxonomy.