ITALY: Details published of standing committee meeting on Italy major shareholdings changes

Wednesday March 18 2015

The Italian securities regulator CONSOB has published details of its sanding committee meeting held to discuss Bill n. 1758 on the transposition of European directives and the implementation of other acts of the European Union.

As regards the implementation of the revised Transparency Directive into Italian law, one issue raised has been the thresholds for notification. Under current rules, many EU countries require disclosure from 3%, such as the UK, Netherlands and the Czech Republic. Lower thresholds will continue to be permitted. Italy however requires disclosure from 2%, subject to some exemptions (investment management exemptions apply, different thresholds apply for passive changes, and disclosure is only required in SMEs from 5%).

Consob has indicated that it is keen to increase the current thresholds to either 3% or 5%, to achieve the harmonization aims of the Directive. The aggregation rules for physically settled and cash settled instruments will also require a change in the domestic rules. This will require changes to the Consob Issuer Regulation. Currently no draft revisions to the rules have been published, however transposition of the revised Transparency Directive is required by the end of November 2015.

Click on the above link for more details (in Italian).