DENMARK: Email from Danish FSA on Denmark major shareholdings provisions

Tuesday July 13 2010

In a reply to an email on legislation concerning Denmark major shareholdings and substantial acquisitions, the Danish FSA provided the following:

1. There is no current plans for an updated English Translation of the Executive Order on Major Shareholdings. The last changes in the Executive Order consisted in minor linguistic alterations.

There is a website dedicated to the reporting of major shareholding which you can find by using this link.

Further instructions are given on the website. A foreign shareholder must log in to the Danish FSA`s notification system by user name and password.

2. With regard to the application requirement for the acquisition of a qualifying stake under Section 10 of the Securities Trading Act, Section 10 a sets out the criteria for the approval. The application cannot be made electronically, but there is a form for the purpose

However, completing this form will usually not be deemed an adequate level of information for the evaluation.

And yes, Section 10 also applies to more entities acting in concert. In translation, the provision states: “Any natural or legal person, or natural and legal persons acting in concert with each other, planning directly or indirectly to acquire a qualifying interest of 10 per cent or more…” The term “financial instruments” include all instruments listed in Section 2(1) of the Securities Trading Act.

3. There is no list of banks to which the measures apply. The term “financial instruments” for the purposes of the measures on short selling is defined in section 2 in the Securities Trading Act which can be viewed on the webpage of the Danish FSA.