Alerts

Proposed New Pan-European Rules on Short Selling

October 21, 2010

On 15 September 2010, the European Commission (“Commission”) published its proposal (the “Proposal”) for a pan-European short selling regime, which also takes into account uncovered credit default swaps (which have an equivalent economic effect). The regime, if implemented, would require greatly increased disclosure, both to the regulator of the relevant EU country and to the markets generally. It is also proposed that EU regulators be given powers to ban short selling more widely at times of threat to financial stability or to market confidence in the EU. It is expected that once the Proposal is negotiated and adopted by EU lawmakers, the new regime would come into force on 1 July 2012.