On 4 December 2018, RSA FSCA released discussion papers on short sales/LEIs.

• FSCA issued the following two discussions papers for comment by 15 January 2019.

Short Sale Reporting

• In response to the finding in the 2014 IMF Financial Sector Assessment Program that South Africa did not have a reporting framework in place for short sales.
• FSCA publishes a discussion paper that sets out proposals to address shortcoming.
• Includes flagging of short sale orders on an exchange trading system and public disclosure of aggregated short sale transactions across authorized exchange users.
• Two-tier system for the reporting and disclosure of significant short positions held in shares admitted to trading on a regulated market (position reporting).
• This comprises requirement for private disclosure if net short position has reached a specified first trigger threshold, and public disclosure if it reaches higher position.

Legal Entity Identifiers

• The aim of this discussion paper is to promote awareness of the global use of LEI’s and seek feedback from the market on the proposals for the implementation of LEIs.

Effectiveness

• Comments are due by 15 January 2019.