Brussels, 16/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of European Security Regulators (CESR) recently initiated further consultation in order to specify the measures for implementing the Market Abuse Directive, insider dealing and other market manipulations adopted on 3 December.
The consultation, which will come to a close on 15 June, concerns five points: 1) accepted market practices which are not considered market abuse: the CESR hopes to specify the principles and procedures allowing these practices to be authorised; 2) inside information in commodity derivatives markets: regulators hope to focus on prices, contractual information and information on the underlying markets; 3) insiders' lists: consultation covers the updating of lists of people who have access to insider information; 4) disclosure of transactions: the CESR suggests that these obligations should cover members of the administrative, management or supervisory boards of the issuer together with the senior managers having similar decision-making capacity within the issuer; and 5) notification of suspicious transactions: the CESR suggests that such suspicions should be notified when there is insufficient indication of abuse, even before there is formal evidence.
A hearing on these issues will be held in Paris on 12 May. The Committee of Regulators should publish its opinion end July and transmit it to the European Commission end August. We recall that the Commission, moreover, published working documents in March to specify measures for implementing the directive, also bearing on the definition of "privileged information", the equitable presentation of recommendations and conflict of interest, as well as the "spheres of security" allowing certain insider operations to be exempted. The CESR consultation paper is available on its website (http://www.europefesco.org ).