FRANCE: France short selling disclosure regime in force 1 February

Tuesday February 1 2011

Further to the update of 17 November 2010, new arrangements to introduce a permanent regime for the disclosure of net France short selling positions in shares to the Autorite des marches financiers (AMF) and the market will apply from 1 February 2011. On that date, the exceptional measures introduced by the AMF on 19 September 2008 concerning a list of financial stocks will lapse.

The regime concerns all issuers whose shares are admitted to trading on a French regulated market (Euronext Paris) or organised multilateral trading facility (Alternext Paris), except shares for which the French market is not the principal trading market.

The first calculation to be made by investors will concern the net short position at the end of the day on 1 February (midnight at the latest) in each of the issuers concerned. The calculation must be made at the level of the decision-maker responsible for taking the position. For each stock in which the position exceeds one of the designated regulatory thresholds, a report must be sent to the AMF no later than 3.30 pm on Wednesday 2 February 2011 by the natural or legal person holding the position or by their representative. In the latter case, the name of the person holding the position must nevertheless be mentioned in the report. Investors holding a net short position in a financial stock already reported to the AMF under the regime introduced on 19 September 2008 will be required to send a new report on the net short position held in that stock at day`s end on 1 February 2011, calculated in accordance with the method set forth in Article 4 of Instruction 2010-08 if the position exceeds one of the thresholds in the new regime.

The standard report must be sent by email only to reportingpositionscourtes@amf-france.org. The mandatory report form is available on the AMF website, www.amf-france.org, under the Short selling section in the Issuers, Services Providers and Compliance Officer areas.

Prior applications for exemption from the requirement to report net short positions in a specified issuer must be sent to reportingpositionscourtes@amf-france.org; they must contain the data listed in Annex 2 of Instruction 2010-08. The AMF reminds market participants that the exemption applies only to a liquidity provision activity that complies in all respects with the definition in Article 5 of the Instruction.

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