• FR AMF issued a press release entitled Regulation on short selling, setting out the basis of EU regulation on short selling and the reporting obligations, affecting French firms.
• Follows AMF June 2020 issued guidance on short sales, on enforcement.

Background

• Regulation 236/2012 had established a European transparency regime for short selling.
• Since 1 November 2012, this requirement has been included in the regime that had existed in France since February 2011, without then modifying these previous rules substantially.
• It reinforces the requirements to locate heavily sold short to prevent delivery defects and prohibits the purchase of sovereign credit default swaps that do not cover exposure.

Reporting

• Any natural or legal person holding a short position, not equal to or greater than 0.2% of capital of a company whose shares are admitted to trading on European market, must declare this position to the competent authority within a day of the negotiation.
• As soon as the declared short position is equal to or greater than 0.5% of the capital, the competent authority must be informed and must then make the information public.
• The same obligation of declaration and publication of the competent authority applies in event of crossing upwards or downwards of additional thresholds in steps of 0.1%.

Other Information

• The press release also contained links to information on short selling, ESMA FAQs on the short positions regime, and further information provided on the FR AMF website.