EUROPE: Commission publishes draft RTS on EU major shareholdings

Tuesday December 23 2014

The European Commission has adopted a Delegated Regulation pursuant to the revisions to the Transparency Directive which details the regulatory technical standards (RTS) on EU major shareholdings.

Directive 2013/50/EU which has amended the Transparency Directive updated the regime for notification of major holdings of voting rights under the Directive, by introducing requirements regarding the aggregation of holdings of shares with holdings of financial instruments and provisions harmonising the calculation of notification thresholds and exemptions from the notification requirements.

The delegated act is structured as follows:

• Articles 2 and 3 set out the requirement for the aggregation of holdings for the purposes of calculating the 5 % threshold referred to in the market maker and trading book exemptions under Article 9(5) and (6) of the Directive, including at group level, as required by Article 9(6b) of the Directive;
• Article 4 sets out a methodology for calculating the number of voting rights associated with financial instruments referenced to a basket of shares or an index, as required by Article 13(1a)(a) of the Directive;
• Article 5 sets out a methodology for determining delta for the purpose of calculating voting rights relating to financial instruments which provide exclusively for a cash settlement, as required by Article 13(1a)(b) of the Directive;
• Article 6 clarifies the application of the trading book exemption to client-serving transactions, as required by Article 13(4) of the Directive.

Provided there are no objections from the European Parliament and the Council, the RTS will be published in the Official Journal in the New Year and will enter into effect on 26th November 2015.

Click on the above link for more details.