Source: Katarina Krempova¸ PKF Malta¸ 10 January 2012
According to the proposal¸ Article 33 of the Transparency Directive (Directive 2004/109/EC) requested the European Commission to report on the operation of this Directive with an aim to ensure the proper and efficient functioning of the market.
To improve the current regime¸ a proposal for the Amendment of the Transparency Directive was adopted with following objectives:
- to maintain and¸ and where necessary¸ to enhance the level of investor protection;
- to ensure that the information disclosed is sufficient and useful for investment purposes at acceptable cost.
The proposal focuses on the following specific provisions¸ such as:
1. Choice of the home Member State for third country issuers in order to make the Transparency Directive clearer with regard to which country is the home Member States for issuers who have to choose their home Member State¸ but who have not done so. Therefore¸ a listed company shouldn’t operate without being under the supervision of any Member State.
2. The requirement to publish interim management statements and/or quarterly reports is abolished with an aim to reduce the administrative burden linked to listing on regulated markets and to encourage long-term investment.
3. The definition of financial instrument should be broadened in order to take account of financial innovation and ensure that issuers and investors have full knowledge of the structure of corporate ownership.
4. Greater harmonisation for notification of major holdings – aggregation of holdings of shares with holdings of financial instruments in order to improve legal certainty¸ enhance transparency¸ simplify cross-border investments and reduce the underlying costs.
5. Storage of regulated information in order to facilitate cross border access to regulated information and enhance the current network of officially appointed storage mechanisms.
6. Reporting of payments to governments with an aim to make governments accountable for the use of these resources and promote good governance.
7. Sanctions and investigation in order to provide for a better implementing framework of the provisions of the Directive.
8. Other technical adjustments and clarifications
To read whole proposal click here
Source: European Commission