• ESMA laid out national thresholds for shareholder identification under revised shareholder rights directive (SRD II), included links to national rules for each state.
• Contains information setting out: national thresholds for shareholder identification in MSs that have established such a threshold; relevant national legislation and rules.
• And indication of MSs where revised SRDII has not yet been transposed into law.
• Drafted document to enhance transparency around regimes adopted across the EU.
• SRDII requires MSs to ensure companies have the right to identify their shareholders.
• MSs may provide for companies having a registered office on their territory to be only allowed to request the identification of shareholders holding more than a certain percentage of shares or voting rights; such a percentage shall not exceed 0,5 %.

Rules in Revised Directive

• Article 3.a(1) of revised SRD requires member states to ensure companies with office registered in their territory have the right to identify their shareholders.
• Companies only allowed to request identification of shareholders holding over a certain percentage of shares or voting rights, such a percentage shall not exceed 0.5%.
• Shareholder identity must be provided by the intermediary on the business day following the record date or the receipt of the request, whichever is later.
• In member states who have established a threshold, companies do not have right to request identification of shareholders holding shares/voting rights below this threshold.

Threshold Overview

• To facilitate transparency, ESMA published table with national thresholds.
• Where a member state has decided not to adopt a threshold, this is indicated.
• For member states not yet transposed revised SRD, table indicates this, provides information on status of legislative process at time of finalization of ESMA table.
• As and when ESMA is notified by member states that information reflected in the table has changed, the table will be updated and republished on ESMA’s website.

Next Steps

• When ESMA receives notifications from Member States that information reflected in the document has changed, the document will be updated and republished on the website.
• May be a small delay such updates; if discrepancy is identified between information in the document and rules published at national level, priority to be given to the latter.