The European Securities and Markets Authority published a final report providing technical advice to the European Commission on how the Central Securities Depositories Regulation settlement discipline regime should define the scope of cash penalties. The advice sets out which settlement fails are not attributable to transaction participants and when certain operations should not be treated as trading for the purposes of settlement discipline. Under ESMA’s proposed approach, a broad set of scenarios would not trigger CSDR cash penalties, including Central Securities Depository-level technical failures such as system outages, cyberattacks, or network disruptions. The advice also excludes cases such as full-day trading suspensions of an ISIN on its most liquid market and technical creation and redemption of fund units or shares on the primary market, including for Exchange-Traded Funds. The European Commission will consider the technical advice when drafting a new delegated act to further specify which operations and transactions fall within the settlement discipline regime.