ESMA 2026 Enforcement Priorities: The CSSF Review of FY2026 Reports

On 13 October 2026 ESMA published its Public Statement on the European common enforcement priorities for 2026 corporate reporting (ESMA32-2064178921-9738), and the CSSF relayed it on its Enforcement of Issuer Disclosure page the same day. The ESMA 2026 enforcement priorities name the parts of the 2026 annual financial report that the CSSF and the other EEA enforcers will read with particular attention: liquidity, fair value and restructuring disclosures under IFRS, materiality and connectivity in sustainability statements, and the ESEF markup of the statement of changes in equity.

For a December year-end the clock is already running. Subject to the applicable exemptions under the Luxembourg Transparency Law, Article 3(1) requires an issuer with Luxembourg as its home Member State to publish its annual financial report no later than four months after the financial year-end. For a non-exempt issuer with a 31 December 2026 year-end, the deadline is 30 April 2027. The scope assessment must first consider Article 7, including the exemptions for qualifying high-denomination debt issuers, and, where relevant, Article 21 concerning third-country issuers. Luxembourg adds a wrinkle the ESMA statement does not address: when the CSSF last reported on the point, the CSRD had not been transposed here, so the sustainability priorities reach mainly issuers that apply the ESRS voluntarily.

Related reading: CSRD Sustainability Reporting: What Luxembourg Entities Need to Know

Dates that frame the FY2026 review

• 13 October 2026: ESMA publishes the 2026 statement; the CSSF relays it the same day.
• 15 October 2026: the CSSF relays ESMA’s 31st extract from the FRWG (EECS) database of enforcement, which ESMA describes as seven decisions on IFRS Accounting Standards and its Guidelines on Alternative Performance Measures.
• 10 November 2026: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563, the simplified ESRS, enters into force. Its Article 2 governs the standards choice for financial years starting in 2026.
• 31 December 2026: reporting date for calendar-year issuers.
• 1 January 2027: IFRS 18 becomes effective for annual periods beginning on or after this date, per the ESMA statement; Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 applies to financial years beginning on or after it.
• 19 March 2027: deadline for Member States to transpose Articles 1 to 3 of Directive (EU) 2026/470, the sustainability reporting part of the Omnibus amendments.
• 30 April 2027: latest publication date for the 2026 annual financial report of a non-exempt issuer with a 31 December year-end.

One date is missing from that list: the CSSF’s own national themes. For the 2025 reporting cycle the CSSF published them on 12 December 2025, two months after ESMA’s 2025 statement. Its Enforcement of Issuer Disclosure page listed no equivalent communique for 2026 reports when checked on 17 October 2026.

What the ESMA 2026 enforcement priorities cover

The statement has four sections. Three set priorities; the fourth collects general remarks that ESMA says are not 2026 enforcement priorities, though issuers should consider them because they repeat earlier recommendations, concern particular sectors or anticipate upcoming requirements.

The statement’s objective paragraph sets the terms. ESMA and the national enforcers will pay particular attention to these areas when examining 2026 reports, enforcers will continue to look at entity-specific issues, enforcement action follows wherever material misstatements are found, and ESMA reports on the findings afterwards. Enforcers may also set national priorities. The list therefore marks where an examiner starts reading; an issuer whose largest judgement sits elsewhere should not expect the review to stop at ESMA’s headings.

Two qualifications in the opening page matter for how a Luxembourg reporting team scopes the work. ESMA asks issuers to apply the recommendations “in light of their materiality and relevance” to the issuer’s operations, so a priority that has no material bearing on the business does not need manufactured disclosure. And ESMA addresses management and supervisory bodies directly, underlining the oversight role of audit committees in keeping the annual financial report internally consistent, supervising internal controls and contributing to report quality.

How the CSSF applies the ECEP under the Transparency Law

The legal hook is Article 22 of the Law of 11 January 2008 on transparency requirements for issuers. Article 22(1) makes the CSSF the competent authority and includes among its tasks examining whether the information covered by the law is drawn up in line with the relevant reporting framework. Where it detects an infringement, Article 22(2)(h) lets it require one or more of three measures: a new publication of the regulated information, publication of a corrective notice, or an appropriate correction in future regulated information. Article 25(1)(d) attaches an administrative fine of between EUR 125 and EUR 125,000 to a failure to respect those measures.

The CSSF’s January 2026 report on its 2025 campaign describes how issuers are picked: a mixed model combining a risk-based approach with sampling and rotation, and three examination types. Unlimited scope examinations cover the whole of an issuer’s financial and non-financial information and usually involve interaction with the issuer; focused examinations test pre-defined issues; thematic reviews look at practice across a sample and generally do not involve interaction. In 2025 unlimited scope examinations covered 17% of the issuers in the CSSF’s scope, against 16% in 2024.

The population is mixed. As at 1 January 2025 the CSSF counted 120 issuers in scope for the enforcement of financial information: 73 from Luxembourg, 31 from third countries and 16 from other EEA states. Ninety-four reported principally under IFRS, 12 under Luxembourg GAAP, 10 under GAAP deemed equivalent to IFRS and 4 under other GAAP. Seventy had debt securities admitted, 47 equity and 3 depository receipts or warrants. The population for non-financial information was 35 issuers.

The outcome mix from 2025 shows where the weight falls. Of the decisions the CSSF communicated that year, 27% were injunctions because the accounting treatment, presentation or disclosure did not comply with the applicable framework, 25% were improvements agreed with the issuer, and 28% were recommendations for future reports, half of which concerned issuers’ voluntary application of the ESRS. ESMA’s EEA-wide figures for 2025 show the split on IFRS statements: in around 89% of enforcement actions, enforcers considered a correction in future financial statements sufficient, and in around 11% they required immediate disclosure through a reissuance or a corrective note.

National themes come on top. The CSSF’s 12 December 2025 communique on the 2025 annual reports told issuers to read the ECEPs alongside the CSSF’s own priorities, “as the latter are derived from the ECEPs”, and then built on them. Its segment reporting section, which draws on a July 2024 IFRS Interpretations Committee agenda decision on paragraph 23 of IFRS 8, develops one of ESMA’s own 2025 IFRS priorities; the topic it added on top of the priorities set jointly with ESMA was the ESRS disclosure requirements on policies and actions. The same communique was addressed to the issuers’ auditors as well as to the issuers.

Liquidity, fair value and disposals: the geopolitical priority in IFRS terms

ESMA frames the first IFRS priority around geopolitical tension, trade policy, sanctions and regional conflict, and then converts it into specific disclosure asks. Liquidity comes first. IFRS 7 requires disclosures that let users evaluate the nature and extent of liquidity risk arising from financial liabilities, and ESMA expects a complete maturity analysis based on undiscounted contractual cash flows, principal and interest, including lease liabilities and trade payables.

The narrow point is the time bands. ESMA says a broad one-to-five-year band may be inappropriate where material repayments fall in a particular year inside that range, and that more granular intervals, including intervals shorter than one year, may then be warranted. A one-to-five-year band that hides a material repayment due in a single year of that range is the case ESMA’s example describes. ESMA also asks for an explanation of significant changes in liquidity risk exposure against the prior period, a maturity analysis of financial assets held to manage liquidity risk where relevant, and a clear line between financing that is committed and financing still subject to conditions, negotiations or approvals.

Restricted cash links the ESMA priority to the CSSF’s own findings. ESMA expects entity-specific disclosure of the nature, amount and location of material cash balances that the group cannot use, for example because of exchange controls, with reference to paragraph 48 of IAS 7. The CSSF’s 2025 campaign found restricted cash balances disclosed without the management commentary paragraph 48 requires, alongside investing and financing cash flows presented net where gross presentation was required.

Covenants carry a classification trap. ESMA points to IAS 1.76ZA(a) for disclosure of covenant ratios or performance measures, thresholds, testing frequency and the outcome of covenant assessments, and asks issuers to say whether covenant waivers were obtained during the period or after the reporting date. It then reminds issuers, citing paragraph 74 of IAS 1, that a waiver obtained after the reporting date but before the statements are authorised for issue does not change the current or non-current classification at the reporting date. A waiver signed in February 2027 therefore does not move a liability back to non-current in the 31 December 2026 balance sheet.

On fair value, ESMA asks issuers using discounted cash flow models to check that current uncertainty is reflected in the valuation, to maximise relevant observable inputs, and to remember that reduced trading activity does not automatically mean a quoted price is not fair value or that transactions are not orderly (IFRS 13.B38). For Level 3 measurements it singles out the quantitative information on significant unobservable inputs, the unrealised gains or losses attributable to Level 3, and sensitivity information under paragraph 93 of IFRS 13.

Disposals and market exits bring IFRS 5 into scope. Under IFRS 5.7-9, held-for-sale classification requires the asset or disposal group to be available for immediate sale in its present condition and the sale to be highly probable. The assessment also requires appropriate-level management commitment, an active programme to locate a buyer, marketing at a price reasonable in relation to fair value and, ordinarily, an expectation of completion within one year. An extension beyond one year is permitted only where the delay is outside the entity’s control and the conditions in IFRS 5.9 and Appendix B are met; ESMA wants the facts and circumstances behind any extension disclosed. Banks get one further line: ESMA expects them to reassess whether expected credit loss models, assumptions and management overlays capture heightened uncertainty, with attention to sectoral, geographical and counterparty exposures.

Restructuring provisions and modified debt

The second IFRS priority pairs two topics ESMA ties to changing economic conditions. On restructuring, ESMA restates the IAS 37 recognition test: a constructive obligation arises only when the entity has a detailed formal plan and has raised a valid expectation in those affected, by starting to implement the plan or announcing its main features to them. On ESMA’s summary, a plan approved internally but neither started nor announced to those affected does not yet support a provision. Measurement is limited to direct expenditures necessarily entailed by the restructuring and not associated with ongoing activities, so costs tied to the continuing business stay out of the provision.

ESMA asks for transparent disclosure of the main categories of expenditure in the provision and for consistency between what the management report says about a restructuring programme and what the financial statements recognise. Termination benefits for staff made redundant follow IAS 19, paragraphs 159 to 171, and where a programme touches defined benefit plans the issuer has to assess whether a curtailment or settlement has occurred. ESMA also expects issuers to consider knock-on effects under IAS 36 and IFRS 5.

On debt, ESMA addresses renegotiated interest rates, maturities, repayment schedules, lenders, guarantees, collateral and covenants. Modifications of financial liabilities are assessed for derecognition under paragraph 3.3.2 of IFRS 9. ESMA acknowledges the quantitative 10% test in paragraph B3.3.6 and then states that it expects issuers also to consider qualitative factors, giving a change in the currency of denomination and the introduction of an embedded equity component as examples of what may make a modification substantial. A modification that falls below the 10% threshold can therefore still need a documented qualitative assessment before the issuer concludes the original liability continues.

The disclosure ask follows from that: the entity-specific accounting policy for assessing whether a modification leads to derecognition (IAS 1.117), the significant judgements applied in the period (IAS 1.122), and, where needed, quantitative information about the effects of modifications so users can understand the risks from the instruments concerned.

Sustainability statements and Luxembourg’s pending CSRD transposition

The CSSF has been explicit on its starting point. Both its 12 December 2025 communique and its January 2026 results report state that the CSRD had not been transposed in Luxembourg, that issuers therefore remain subject to the Non-Financial Reporting Directive requirements as transposed into Luxembourg law, and that many issuers nevertheless chose to apply the CSRD voluntarily from the 2024 financial year. The transposition bill, No. 8370, was filed with the Chamber of Deputies on 29 March 2024. The Chamber’s dossier, in the latest version available at the time of writing, still showed the bill in committee with a last update of 22 December 2025, and no record of a plenary vote was found. That status should be rechecked on the dossier before it is relied on for the FY2026 report.

The EU framework moved in the meantime. Directive (EU) 2026/470, published in the Official Journal on 26 February 2026, limits mandatory sustainability reporting to undertakings and issuers with more than 1,000 employees on average and net turnover above EUR 450 million, for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027. Its recitals explain that Member States should be able to exempt first-wave undertakings and issuers that fall outside the new scope for financial years beginning between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2026, and Article 5(1) sets 19 March 2027 as the transposition deadline for the sustainability reporting articles. How Bill No. 8370 will absorb those amendments is for the Luxembourg legislator.

Against that background, ESMA’s sustainability section reaches Luxembourg issuers mainly through voluntary ESRS reporting, which the CSSF already reviews, as its 2025 recommendation figures above show. Across the EEA, ESMA’s 2025 enforcement report counted 263 examinations of sustainability statements prepared under the CSRD and ESRS, a quarter of them voluntary statements from issuers in Member States that had not transposed the CSRD, and it cautioned that supervision of mandatory and voluntary statements may not be fully equivalent because the legal bases differ, particularly for enforcement actions.

ESMA calls FY2026 a transitional year for the standards. Under Article 2(1) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563, undertakings within the scope of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772 may prepare FY2026 statements using ESRS Set 1 as amended by the quick-fix Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1416, using the simplified ESRS Set 2, or using Set 1 together with the eight reliefs listed in Article 2(1)(b), which cover items such as the top-down approach to the double materiality assessment, value chain limitations and the executive summary. Article 2(2) requires the undertaking to state clearly which version it applies, and ESMA adds that the Article 2(1)(b) list is exhaustive.

Article 2(1) addresses undertakings falling within the scope of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772. It does not itself settle whether the transitional choices create an obligation or entitlement for a Luxembourg issuer publishing an ESRS statement voluntarily while CSRD transposition remains outstanding. Such an issuer should identify the reporting basis and the version of the standards used, and separately establish which legal requirements apply to its circumstances. ESMA’s own footnotes show why it matters: the same expectation sits at different paragraph numbers in Set 1 and Set 2, as the table in the next section shows. Our note on the revised ESRS datapoint cut covers what changed between the two sets.

One question the CSSF publications reviewed here leave open is the position of the 16 EEA and 31 third-country issuers in its financial-information population. Which sustainability reporting regime applies to them depends on each issuer’s own legal position, and neither the December 2025 communique nor the January 2026 report addresses it.

Materiality and connectivity: the two ESRS priorities in detail

The first ESRS priority continues the double materiality theme of the last two years. ESMA has observed issuers giving fuller disclosure on positive impacts than on negative ones, and it asks for both to be assessed with the same rigour and disclosed with comparable granularity, with clear disclosure of any impact materiality thresholds, especially where different thresholds were used for positive and negative impacts. The identification and assessment disclosures should cover own operations and the upstream and downstream value chain. ESMA also asks for process descriptions that are concise, company-specific and tied to the topic assessed: if the process for own workforce differed from the process for climate change, users benefit from being told. The entity-specific category should be used only once every possibility of relying on the ESRS categorisation has been excluded.

The second priority is connectivity, and for FY2026 enforcers will focus on E1 Climate change and S1 Own workforce because those topics are the most mature. ESMA wants policies and targets that visibly address the IROs described under SBM-3 and IRO-2, an explanation when a GHG reduction target does not cover the full inventory, and a plain statement when no policy, action or target exists for a material IRO. Aggregation can hide gaps: where an aggregated IRO covers both physical and transition climate risk but the target covers transition risk only, or where the IRO spans the value chain and the policy covers own operations, ESMA wants that said.

Connectivity also runs outward. ESMA has seen mismatches between the IROs disclosed under SBM-3 and the risks described elsewhere in the annual financial report, and omissions of the current financial effects of material IROs. For Luxembourg issuers that publish a voluntary ESRS statement alongside IFRS accounts and a principal-risks section, the SBM-3 list, the management report risks and the IFRS judgement notes are three places an examiner can read side by side.

Targets receive the most detailed treatment. ESMA wants measurable, time-bound and outcome-oriented targets with methodology specific to each target, an explicit statement when a target has been met, missed or abandoned, and disclosure of baseline or methodology changes such as a new perimeter after an acquisition or improved Scope 3 estimates. ESMA has seen issuers describe targets as “science-based” or aligned with 1.5 degrees without saying whether they meet those characteristics; E1 requires that statement. It also asks for absolute target values alongside any intensity values unless the ESRS specify otherwise (ESMA cites Set 2, E1 Application Requirement 13 for paragraph 24), and for gross GHG reduction targets to be kept apart from targets that are netted through removals or carbon credits. The references ESMA gives for the main asks are below, as cited in its footnotes.

Comparatives get a separate paragraph. Where year-on-year comparability is affected because an issuer prepared its FY2026 statement under Set 2, or under Set 1 with the Set 2 reliefs, ESMA wants that made clear, for example by indicating the disclosures affected. It also reminds first-wave issuers applying Set 2 that the option to omit FY2026 comparatives covers only quantitative metrics and amounts that differ from those required by Set 1.

ESEF: the statement of changes in equity under the microscope

Last year’s ESEF priority was the statement of cash flows, which the CSSF relayed for its review of 2025 reports. For 2026 reports containing IFRS consolidated financial statements, ESMA and the enforcers move to the statement of changes in equity and group the common errors into five families, four of which ESMA ties to specific provisions of the RTS on ESEF, Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/815.

• Correctness of markups (Annex IV, section 3): core concepts applied with the wrong scope or granularity, such as tagging movements in specific equity components with broad total equity members, or tagging a member that combines issued capital and share premium with only one of the two concepts.
• Completeness and consistency (Annex II, sections 1 and 2): missing columns for non-controlling interests, retained earnings or individual reserves, the same concept tagged differently across statements, dimensional inconsistencies, and untagged monetary facts and Annex II text blocks supporting the statement.
• Structure, presentation and calculation (Annex III): filings still containing nested ZIP files inside the package, inappropriate axes and members, and presentation and calculation linkbases that are inconsistent with each other or with the roll-forward.
• Extensions and anchoring (Annex IV, sections 4 and 9): extensions created for merger or statutory reserves although suitable core elements may already exist, and extensions anchored to unrelated concepts such as profit or loss elements.
• Signs, scales and numbers: inverted signs and wrong balance attributes, inconsistent decimals across columns, and opening and closing balance dating errors.

Two details are worth isolating. First, ESMA warns that sign errors are common in this statement precisely because XBRL calculations cannot validate the full roll-forward, so an incorrect sign on an individual movement may pass automated checks. Second, the date convention: an opening balance on 1 January 2026 correctly uses an instant date of 31 December 2025 in an ESEF context, because XBRL dates represent the end of the specified day.

The empty-cell point is a case of recommendation going further than requirement. ESMA states that a dash or empty cell is not a number and is therefore not required to be marked up under Annex II, point 1, and then recommends marking up empty fields and dashes to preserve their meaning, following the ESEF Reporting Manual. Where they are marked up, ixt:fixed-zero is for genuine zeros, nil facts without a transformation are for genuinely nil disclosures, and no fact should be created for information that does not apply.

The CSSF’s 2025 ESEF focused examination of 53 issuers’ 2024 financial statements gives a Luxembourg baseline on anchoring. It found no incorrect markups on the statements of financial position examined, but 38 issuers (72%) used extension elements, creating 182 extensions in total, and only 43 narrower anchors were set on entity-specific and combination extensions, 24% of the total. Of the 33 extensions combining base taxonomy elements, 5 were not anchored to the narrower core elements, which the CSSF reminded issuers they should be. The 2026 priority applies the same anchoring logic to equity components such as specific reserves, which ESMA expects to be anchored to a wider “other reserves” concept and, where the RTS requires, to narrower concepts.

Tooling for the 2026 filings is already set. The statement notes that the ESEF taxonomy package ESMA published in April 2026 applies to 2026 annual financial reports and contains separate IAS 1 and IFRS 18 entry points; the ESEF taxonomy update for 2026 IFRS filings covers what changed in that package.

Reminders outside the priorities: IFRS 18, APMs and the next sustainability cycle

Section 4 of the statement is not part of the 2026 priorities, but it contains the item most likely to need work in the 2026 accounts themselves. ESMA describes IFRS 18 as effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027, with comparatives for the preceding period and the new requirements also applying to IAS 34 interim statements in the year of initial application. For the 2026 financial statements of an issuer that has not applied IFRS 18 early, IAS 8.30 requires disclosure of that fact and of known or reasonably estimable information relevant to assessing the possible impact of IFRS 18, and IAS 8.31 lists the nature of the impending change among the items the entity considers disclosing. ESMA expects material, entity-specific information about significant judgements and accounting policies, including the assessment of specified main business activities and measures expected to qualify as management-defined performance measures. Depending on implementation progress, ESMA also encourages issuers to quantify expected changes in operating profit or loss and other subtotals.

The knock-on effects ESMA lists reach beyond the notes: financial targets and other metrics in business plans, and ESEF, where early assessment of XBRL mappings, taxonomy elements and potential extensions, including for comparatives, is encouraged. On alternative performance measures, ESMA reminds issuers of its Q&A 1884 on the APM Guidelines for performance measures based on hypothetical income and expenses in regulated information, prospectuses and Article 17 MAR disclosures, and asks issuers to assess carefully whether adjusted or new APMs would give transparent and useful information before changing them. The interaction between the APM Guidelines and IFRS 18 management-defined performance measures is covered in our note on ESMA APM Guidelines and IFRS 18.

The CSSF’s own record gives the APM point local weight. Its 2025 campaign still found APMs in annual results press releases that were not properly defined, explained or reconciled, missing definitions where a measure was treated as industry-standard, missing reconciliations or comparatives, and different labels used for the same APM.

Two forward-looking sustainability remarks close the section. ESMA observes that many targets are approaching their 2030 deadline and that, where an issuer concludes a 2030 target cannot be achieved, prompt disclosure will be needed in line with the targets priority. And it asks issuers that did not use Set 2 for FY2026 to prepare FY2027 reporting on Set 2, noting that under ESRS 1, paragraph 24 of Set 2, undertakings should not report non-material information except in specific cases.

Turning the statement into a close-and-filing plan

The statement does not prescribe a workflow, and the sensible sequence depends on which of the five priorities are material for the issuer. Read against the Luxembourg sources, though, the work splits by output.

1. IFRS notes: a maturity table re-cut where repayments cluster, a restricted-cash map by jurisdiction against IAS 7.48, a covenant schedule with thresholds, test dates and outcomes, and a waiver log dated against 31 December 2026.
2. Judgement papers: the IAS 37 trigger date for any restructuring, the IFRS 9 qualitative assessment for any renegotiated debt, and the evidence behind any IFRS 5 extension beyond one year.
3. Sustainability statement, where one is published: the ESRS version decision, an SBM-3 reconciliation against the management report risks, and a check of each E1 and S1 target against ESMA’s points on methodology, status and absolute values.
4. ESEF: a test of the statement of changes in equity iXBRL against the five error families, with a manual sign review of each movement.
5. Governance: an audit committee pack containing the ESMA statement and, once published, the CSSF’s national themes, since ESMA addresses its consistency and control expectations to that body.

Where ESEF tagging is outsourced, the anchoring and sign checks ESMA lists for the equity statement belong in the provider’s review scope before the first draft iXBRL file arrives.

Frequently Asked Questions

Our only listed securities are bonds with a EUR 100,000 denomination. Does the CSSF review our annual report against these priorities?

Article 7(1)(b) of the Transparency Law disapplies the annual and half-yearly report obligations in Articles 3 and 4 to an issuer exclusively of debt securities admitted to a regulated market with a denomination per unit of at least EUR 100,000. Article 7(4) extends the same exemption to debt securities of at least EUR 50,000 admitted before 31 December 2010, for as long as they are outstanding. The CSSF’s enforcement population as at 1 January 2025 still included 70 issuers with debt securities admitted, so an issuer’s debt-only status has to be tested against the Article 7(1)(b) denomination threshold.

Our financial year runs from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. Which ESRS rules apply if we publish an ESRS statement?

For undertakings within its scope, Article 2 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 covers financial years starting between 1 January and 31 December 2026, so a year starting on 1 July 2026 falls inside the transitional choice. The regulation then applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027, which for this issuer means the year starting 1 July 2027. The ESMA statement speaks of “2026 annual financial reports” and FY2026 without defining non-calendar years, so the start date of the financial year is the cleaner anchor.

The 2026 priorities contain no EU Taxonomy recommendations. Can we give Article 8 disclosures less attention this year?

ESMA left Taxonomy out of the priorities because the Climate, Environmental and Disclosures Delegated Acts are under revision, but it states that enforcers will continue to supervise Taxonomy disclosures in FY2026 sustainability statements. In Luxembourg the CSSF has reminded issuers that the Taxonomy reporting requirement applies to undertakings subject to the non-financial statement obligation, which while the CSRD remains untransposed means NFRD-scope undertakings, and it ran a focused examination of non-financial issuers’ Article 8 disclosures in 2025. EEA-wide, 84% of 2025 enforcement actions on NFRD statements related to non-financial undertakings’ Taxonomy reporting. A temporary relief is available to financial undertakings: until 31 December 2027, Article 7(9) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178, inserted by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/73, disapplies Articles 2 to 8 of that Regulation, except Article 8(2), for a financial undertaking that claims no activities as associated with environmentally sustainable economic activities under Articles 3 and 9 of the Taxonomy Regulation, provided its management report includes the statement that Article 7(9) prescribes. Our note on EU Taxonomy disclosure simplification covers the simplified Article 8 rules.

Can the CSSF take formal enforcement action on a voluntary ESRS statement?

The sources reviewed here do not settle it. ESMA’s 2025 enforcement report says supervision of mandatory and voluntary statements may not be fully equivalent because the legal bases differ, in particular for enforcement actions. The CSSF’s 2025 output on voluntary ESRS reporting took the form of recommendations for future reports. A reasonable reading is that a voluntary statement published inside the annual financial report will be examined against the ESMA priorities whatever form any follow-up takes, since the CSSF already ran a thematic review of such statements in 2025.

We prepare our financial statements under Luxembourg GAAP. Does the ESEF priority affect us?

The ESEF RTS requires issuers that are subject to the Transparency Directive’s annual financial report publication obligation to prepare that report in XHTML. Where the report contains IFRS consolidated financial statements, those statements must also be marked up using Inline XBRL. An issuer reporting only under Luxembourg GAAP must therefore prepare an XHTML annual financial report if the publication obligation applies, but is not required to mark up IFRS consolidated financial statements that it does not prepare. An issuer exempt from the annual reporting obligation must not be treated as subject to the XHTML requirement merely because its securities are admitted to a regulated market. ESMA’s 2026 ESEF priority is expressly limited to reports containing IFRS consolidated financial statements, so a Luxembourg GAAP-only report sits outside the statement of changes in equity markup review. The CSSF counted 12 issuers reporting principally under Luxembourg GAAP as at 1 January 2025.

We announce a restructuring to staff on 15 January 2027. What does the 2026 report need?

A restructuring announced after year-end must be assessed under IAS 10. If it constitutes a material non-adjusting event, paragraphs 21 and 22(e) require disclosure of its nature and an estimate of its financial effect, or a statement that such an estimate cannot be made. Whether a provision is recognised at 31 December 2026 turns on whether the IAS 37 constructive obligation existed at that date, which on ESMA’s summary requires implementation to have started or the main features to have been announced to those affected.

Related Articles

• CSRD Sustainability Reporting: What Luxembourg Entities Need to Know: the CSRD framework and its application to Luxembourg undertakings.
• Revised ESRS: The 60% Datapoint Cut Facing CSRD Reporters: the Commission’s revised ESRS and the datapoint reduction they bring.
• ESMA ESEF Taxonomy 2025: What Changes for 2026 IFRS Filings: the April 2026 taxonomy package with its IAS 1 and IFRS 18 entry points.
• ESMA APM Guidelines and IFRS 18: What Changes From 2027: how APM disclosures interact with management-defined performance measures.
• EU Taxonomy Disclosure Simplification: The 12 August ESMA Deadline: the simplified Article 8 disclosure rules and the related ESMA deadline.

Key Takeaways

• Scope boundary: an issuer exclusively of debt securities with a denomination of at least EUR 100,000 sits outside the Article 3 annual report obligation, so confirm the issuer’s status under Article 7 of the Transparency Law before planning the review.
• Enforcement outcome: a material finding can lead to a new publication, a corrective notice or a correction in future reports under Article 22(2)(h), and not respecting the measure the CSSF requires can lead to an administrative fine of EUR 125 to EUR 125,000.
• Put a December check of the CSSF’s Enforcement of Issuer Disclosure page into the close calendar; national themes can add topics the ECEP does not prioritise.
• For 2026 financial statements, prepare the IAS 8.30 disclosure of known or reasonably estimable information on IFRS 18’s possible impact, considering the IAS 8.31 items such as the nature of the change. Include material information about significant presentation judgements and expected management-defined performance measures where relevant; IFRS 18 becomes mandatory for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027.
• Taxonomy disclosures stay under supervision for FY2026 although the ECEP has no Taxonomy priority; in Luxembourg they apply to NFRD-scope undertakings while the CSRD is untransposed, and until 31 December 2027 a financial undertaking that claims no Taxonomy-aligned activities can meet them with the management report statement prescribed by Article 7(9) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178.
• Reports without IFRS consolidated financial statements are not subject to the corresponding Inline XBRL statement-of-changes-in-equity markup requirement; issuers exempt from the annual reporting obligation must be assessed separately.
• Track Bill No. 8370 against the transposition deadline in Directive (EU) 2026/470 to know whether FY2027 sustainability reporting becomes mandatory for the entity.

Sources and References

• ESMA, Statement “European common enforcement priorities for 2026 corporate reporting”, ESMA32-2064178921-9738, 13 October 2026: ESMA statement (PDF)
• ESMA news, “ESMA sets out 2026 European Common Enforcement Priorities”, 13 October 2026: ESMA news item
• CSSF, relay of the ESMA 2026 statement, 13 October 2026: CSSF document page
• CSSF, Enforcement of Issuer Disclosure (publication list, including the 31st EECS extract relayed on 15 October 2026): CSSF topic page
• CSSF, “Enforcement of the 2025 annual reports published by issuers subject to the Transparency Law”, communique of 12 December 2025: CSSF communique (PDF)
• CSSF, “Results of the enforcement of the 2024 financial and non-financial information published by issuers subject to the Transparency Law”, January 2026: CSSF report (PDF)
• Law of 11 January 2008 on transparency requirements for issuers, CSSF consolidated version (Articles 3, 7, 21, 22 and 25): CSSF page
• ESMA, Report on 2025 Corporate reporting enforcement and regulatory activities, ESMA32-2064178921-9413, 7 May 2026: ESMA report (PDF)
• Directive 2004/109/EC (Transparency Directive): EUR-Lex
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/815 (RTS on ESEF): EUR-Lex
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772 (simplified ESRS): EUR-Lex
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772 (ESRS Set 1): EUR-Lex
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1416 (ESRS quick fix): EUR-Lex
• Directive (EU) 2026/470 (Omnibus amendments to sustainability reporting and due diligence): EUR-Lex
• Directive (EU) 2025/794 (stop-the-clock): EUR-Lex
• Directive (EU) 2022/2464 (CSRD): EUR-Lex
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/73 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2178 (Taxonomy Disclosures Delegated Act, including Article 7(9)): EUR-Lex
• Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1803 (adoption of IFRS Accounting Standards, including IFRS 5, IAS 8, IAS 10 and IAS 37): EUR-Lex
• Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/338 (endorsement of IFRS 18): EUR-Lex
• ESMA, Public Statement “Reshaping performance: Implementation of IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements”, ESMA32-193237008-9180, 17 February 2026: ESMA statement (PDF)
• Chamber of Deputies, dossier No. 8370 (CSRD transposition bill): chd.lu
• ESMA Guidelines on Alternative Performance Measures (ESMA/2015/1415): CSSF page
• ESMA Guidelines on enforcement of financial information (ESMA32-50-218): CSSF page

Before the 30 April 2027 publication

The ESMA statement identifies common enforcement priorities, and any CSSF national themes announced later may add areas of supervisory focus. Neither set of priorities limits the CSSF’s wider statutory enforcement remit or its ability to examine issuer-specific risks. Two items in the plan above should not wait for that communique: for the 2026 financial statements, the restructuring and covenant conditions existing at 31 December 2026 drive recognition and liability classification, while events after that date are considered separately under IAS 10. For any sustainability statement, Article 2(2) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 requires the undertaking to state which ESRS version it applies; the Article does not set a 31 December 2026 deadline for that choice. For an issuer within the Article 3 obligation, the annual financial report built on those decisions has to be public by 30 April 2027.

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