GLEIF monitors compliance with the ELF code list by LEI issuers when an ELF code for a particular legal form is available in a jurisdiction. As of the implementation of version 1.2 of the list of ELF codes, french legal forms (and ELF codes) will now also be used for 7 French overseas territories (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion, Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin). These courts are part of the France and as such have the same legislation and therefore the same legal forms. All legal forms of legal entities are only available in the national language(s). Countries with several official languages (e.g. Switzerland, Belgium, Canada) have registered their legal forms in all official languages. Interested parties wishing to propose a legal form to be included in the list of the ELF code are requested to send an e-mail to info@gleif.org. The LEI Common Data File (CDF) format defines how LEI issuers report their LEI and Level 1 MASTER DATA; that is, business card information about a legal entity that answers the question “Who is who?” The structure of the ELF code has been integrated into the current version of the LEI-CDF format. “Regulators and market participants have recognised the need to identify the legal forms of companies, both nationally and consistently in global markets, and have called for the development of a standard to address this need. This ISO 20275 standard responds to the need to identify legal forms in a structured way in order to be classified, among other things, according to the nature of their legal constitution. ISO has set up a maintenance agency relevant to ISO 20275 and composed of members of ISO Technical Committee 68 Financial Services.
The Swiss Association for Standardization (SNV) is the designated secretariat of the Maintenance Agency. SNV has entrusted GLEIF with “the implementation of the Maintenance Agency Secretariat” and the assumption of related tasks. The GleiF is responsible, among other things, for identifying the existing legal forms of legal entities and assigning a unique ELF code to each legal form in accordance with ISO 20275. More information on maintenance agencies for ISO standards can be found here. ISO stresses that understanding the legal form of a business “is an important part of financial services transactions. To enter into a business relationship, it is necessary to distinguish the type of entity with which business is carried out. The parties (and their organizational structure) involved in financial transactions must be identified in these transactions. Standardization of legal or organizational construction will contribute to flexibility and allow a better understanding of risk exposure and access to capital. This also means that the legal jurisdiction of these companies will be the France, since the legal jurisdiction will be determined by the legal form. And since the legal form is French, the legal jurisdiction must be the France. Declarations must be submitted to the Deutsche Bundesbank by credit institutions domiciled in Germany and German branches of credit institutions domiciled abroad. AnaCredit needs information at the level of individual borrowers and corresponding individual loans.
The definition of credit includes receivables and bills of exchange. The corresponding credit data is divided into basic credit data and dynamic credit data. The ECB has published an updated version (version 2.4) of the list of legal forms for AnaCredit Reporting. This document is an appendix to the AnaCredit Reporting Manual. In this version, reporting agents are allowed to declare both a legal form in the UK and any other legal form in an EU country for COUNTERPARTIES based in the UK after Brexit. This applies to the reporting of all AnaCredit reference periods from the February 2020 reference period. The legal forms listed in the ELF Code have been identified on the basis of GLEIF surveys. The identification of additional legal forms of companies that exist worldwide is still a work in progress.
GLEIF will periodically publish updated versions of the ELF code list. The AnaCredit Reporting Guide consists of three parts that cover the general methodology, datasets and data attributes, and case studies. The annexes to the manual contain additional information on reporting agents.