The London Stock Exchange has responded to HM Treasury’s consultation on the major shareholder notification provisions of the Transparency Directive.
We believe that the proposals made in the consultation are important and could have a substantial impact for both companies and investors; we therefore believe they are worthy of a more substantial consultation. The key points of our response are:
- We believe that for the time being, the definition of disclosable interest should remain as it is.
- We believe that transparency of shareholders of all public companies (whether traded or not) is in the public interest and therefore non traded PLC’s should also be within the scope of the disclosure regime.
- We agree with the proposal to give the FSA powers to make issuers admitted to trading on other markets in the UK (such as AIM), subject to the regime; it is just as important for companies on these markets to know about significant changes to their shareholder register as it is for companies on an EU regulated market.
- We agree with the proposal to repeal the current criminal sanctions for breach of notification obligations, and to give the FSA powers equivalent to those it has to deal with breaches of rules under FSMA.
- We agree with the proposal to maintain the scope of the current Companies Act regime and give the FSA equivalent powers to require disclosures in respect of holdings of financial instruments.