Friday May 29 2015

News Source: Global Disclosures

Focus: Shareholder Disclosure Sanctions

Type: General

Country: Finland




The Finnish securities market regulator the Fin-FSA has announced that it has imposed sanctions for violations of the rules on major shareholdings and short selling.

Major shareholdings

The Financial Supervisory Authority has imposed an administrative fine of EUR 12,000 on Finnvera plc. for failure to comply with the obligation to disclose major shareholdings, as laid down in the Securities Markets Act (746/2012). The company did not disclose a notification of major shareholdings and voting rights within the deadline stipulated in chapter 9 section 9 subsection 1 of the Securities Markets Act. Finnvera plc’s notification was 11 trading days late. Notifications are required to be submitted no later than the trading day following the day when the shareholder becomes aware of a threshold having been crossed or of an agreement or other arrangement which may lead to crossing of a threshold.

Short selling

The Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) has imposed an administrative fine of EUR 15,000 on Noster Credit Opportunities Master Fund Limited. The company failed to comply with the notification requirement concerning short positions.

The net short position of Noster Credit Opportunities Master Fund Limited on 30 July 2013 exceeded, and on 16 July 2014 fell below, the notification threshold of 0.2% referred to in the Regulation on short selling. The company should have notified FIN-FSA of both positions, on the following trading day no later than 3.30 pm Finnish time. The company submitted the required notification of exceeding the threshold on 10 January 2014, after having been contacted by FIN-FSA on several occasions. The delay in notification was about five months. The company submitted the required notification of the position falling below the threshold on 3 October 2015, after having been contacted by FIN-FSA. Here, the delay in notification was about two months.

Click here for the major shareholdings fine. Click here for the short selling fine.