Mon, Jun 29, 2026
A A A
Welcome Guest
Free Trial RSS pod
Get FREE trial access to our award winning publications
Industry Updates

EU publishes proposal for Directive regulating transparency and short selling

Monday, October 31, 2011
Opalesque Industry Update - On 25 October 2011, the European Commission published the provisional text of a proposal for a directive to amend the Transparency Directive ("TD"), together with an impact assessment, and some frequently asked questions. This came hot on the heels of the agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Presidency on 18 October 2011 for a Short Selling Regulation.

Disclosure of Long CfDs

The amended TD will plug the gap in shareholding notification requirements that enabled stake-building by way of cash-settled derivatives without any notification requirement. Currently, as well as shares, the TD requires disclosure of financial instruments that give a legal right to acquire on the holder's own initiative alone shares already in issue and with voting rights attached. These are defined by the FSA as "qualifying financial instruments" and the TD requires holdings of qualifying financial instruments to be aggregated with holdings of shares for the purposes of the notification thresholds. Under the amended TD, the disclosure requirements will extend to financial instruments with similar economic effects to qualifying financial instruments. These are financial instruments that do not give the holder a legal right to acquire shares, but have a similar effect in practice; that is where the instruments are referenced to an issuer’s shares and the holder has a long position on the shares’ economic performance, whether or not the instrument is capable of being settled physically in shares or in cash. Examples are purchases of Contracts for Differences (CfDs) and cash-settled call options or the writing of a put option, as each is referenced to and gives a long position in the shares’ economic performance.

Source

Press release

bc

What do you think?

   Use "anonymous" as my name    |   Alert me via email on new comments   |   
Previous Opalesque Exclusives                                  
Previous Other Voices                                               
Access Alternative Market Briefing

 



  • Top Forwarded
  • Top Tracked
  • Top Searched
  1. Other Voices: Nvidia extraordinary growth and the challenge of sustaining demanding valuations over time[more]

    Antonio Di Giacomo, Senior Market Analyst at XS.com, writes: Nvidia has established itself as one of the most extraordinary growth companies in the global technology sector. Over the past two fiscal years, its revenues have risen from levels close to $60 billion annually to well above $120 billi

  2. Secondaries take center stage: What the 2026 PE landscape means for GPs and investors[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: The 2026 edition of Dechert's Global Private Equity Outlook - "Signs of a Gradual Thaw" - marks a notable shift in industry sentiment. After years of compr

  3. And, finally: Time to share it with the people[more]

    From Newsoftheweird: Leavenworth, Washington, has become a tourist destination because of the Bavarian theme businesses have adopted there, NPR reported. One shop, the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, houses the world's largest nutcracker collection, thanks to 101-year-old Arlene Wagner. Wagner sta

  4. Opalesque Exclusive: Private Markets Evergreen Funds - An Insider's View[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: Private Markets Evergreen Funds: What Investors Need to Know Before They Dive In The democratization of private markets is well underway. Structural barriers t

  5. Opalesque Exclusive: Governance, Scale, and Boutique Resilience in a Consolidating Hedge Fund Industry[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: The hedge fund industry has undergone significant consolidation in recent years, with capital increasingly concentrated among large multi-strategy platforms. Yet boutique m