FRANCE: AMF Public Consultation on Notifications of France Major Shareholdings and Declarations of Intent

Tuesday June 26 2012

The AMF is initiating a public consultation of the draft version of its amended General Regulation, modifying certain provisions on notifications of France major shareholdings and declarations of intent (Book II, Title II) as well as the corresponding declaration form.

These changes have been made subsequent to the Act of 22 March 2012 on the simplification of law and easing of administrative procedures1, which provides that cash-settled derivatives should be taken into account when calculating France major shareholdings in compliance with Article L.233-7 of the Code of Commerce. This article will enter into force on 1 October 2012.

The main changes expected in the General Regulation are the following:

• The extension of aggregation to cash-settled derivatives (Art. 223-11) will be transposed into the General Regulation, with an exception concerning the method used to calculate the trigger point for mandatory bids (Art. 234-1).
• The notification must be renewed by the declaring entity when it acquires the underlying shares of the derivatives and such acquisition results in the number of shares and voting rights effectively held exceeding a legal threshold (Art. 223-11-1 l).
• A new principle has been introduced whereby the same security may only be aggregated once by the reporting entity (Art. 223-11-1 II).

Responses to the consultation must be sent in by Monday, 6 August 2012.

Click on the above link for more details