Obligations of the exchange operator

(1) On grant of the licence, the applicant is authorised and obliged, as operator of the exchange, to establish and operate it. The operator is obliged to make available to the exchange, at the request of the Management, the financial, personnel and material resources required to conduct and appropriately develop exchange operations.
(2) The exchange operator is obliged to publish the current particulars of its ownership structure, to the extent required under section 4(2), third sentence, no. 4, on its website.
(3) The outsourcing of areas material to the conduct of exchange operations to an outsourcing undertaking must impair neither the orderly conduct of trading at the exchange and the settlement of exchange transactions, nor the supervision of the exchange. The exchange operator must in particular contractually secure the necessary powers of instruction and include the outsourced areas in its internal control procedures. The exchange operator must notify the exchange supervisory authority without delay of the intention to make, and the completion of, a material outsourcing, and of material changes and serious incidents within the framework of existing material outsourcing arrangements that impair or may impair the orderly conduct of trading at the exchange or the settlement of exchange transactions.
(4) The exchange operator is obliged to 1. take precautions to identify and prevent conflicts between the exchange operator's own interests or those of its owners and the public interest in the orderly operation of the exchange, insofar as these are liable to have an adverse effect on exchange operations or on trading participants, in particular insofar as the supervisory tasks assigned to the exchange by law are concerned, 2. create appropriate precautions and systems for identifying and dealing with the material risks of exchange operations, including ICT risks under Chapter II of Regulation (EU) 2022/2554, in order to effectively limit them, 3. ensure the technical functionality of the exchange trading and settlement systems, and to create a smooth and timely completion of the transactions concluded in the trading system, and 4. ensure that the exchange has at least three active trading participants, each of which is able to interact with all other trading participants for the purposes of price formation.
(4a) The exchange operator must establish and maintain its operational resilience in accordance with the requirements laid down in Chapter II of Regulation (EU) 2022/2554, to ensure that its trading systems 1. are resilient and have sufficient capacity to deal with peak order and message volumes, 2. are able to ensure orderly trading under conditions of severe market stress, 3. are fully tested to ensure that the conditions in nos. 1 and 2 are met, and 4. are subject to effective business continuity arrangements, including ICT business continuity policies and ICT business continuity plans as well as ICT response and recovery plans under Article 11 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2554, to ensure the continuity of its business operations in the event of disruptions to its trading systems.
(4b) The exchange operator must have systems and procedures in place to 1. ensure that it satisfies the data quality standards laid down in Article 22b of Regulation (EU) No 600/2014, and 2. reject orders that exceed pre-determined volume and price thresholds or that are clearly erroneous.
(5) The exchange operator must have sufficient financial resources for the orderly conduct of exchange operations, having regard to the nature, scope and risk structure of the transactions concluded at the exchange.
(6) The exchange operator must indemnify the Land in whose territory the exchange is located against all third-party claims for damage caused by persons acting for the exchange in the exercise of the tasks entrusted to them.
(7) The exchange operator is not permitted to execute client orders at an exchange using its own capital, or to have recourse to the matching of corresponding client orders within the meaning of section 2(29) of the Securities Trading Act.
(8) The exchange operator must have a process that allows employees, while maintaining the confidentiality of their identity, to report to suitable places possible or actual infringements of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, of Regulation (EU) 2015/2365, of Regulation (EU) No 600/2014, of Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 November 2014 on key information documents for packaged retail and insurance-based investment products (PRIIPs) (OJ L 352, 9.12.2014, p. 1, L 358, 13.12.2014, p. 50), of this Act, of the Securities Trading Act, or of the statutory instruments issued under the Securities Trading Act, as well as any criminal acts within the undertaking.
(9) The exchange operator must notify the exchange supervisory authority without delay of system disruptions relating to a financial instrument, and must fully support it in its investigations.