Elizabeth Fournier Staff writer, Additional reporting by Rachel Evans, Asia editor
European regulators spent June hurriedly changing short selling rules. Germany's ban on naked shorting along with Spain and Portugal's increased disclosure for short positions indicated a panicked reaction to the Eurozone crisis.
The latest draft of Germany's short selling legislation may have alleviated fears of a broad ban on credit and currency derivatives, but naked short selling will still be prohibited. The jurisdictional reach of the rules and their definition of naked short selling are concerning lawyers.
"Since the decrees and then the bill we've been very busy informing clients and advising them on how to comply," says Gunnar Schuster, partner at Freshfields in Frankfurt. "There are several areas that are particularly troubling, although the version approved by the Cabinet has introduced some helpful clarifications."
First, the jurisdictional application of the rules seems ambiguous, leaving uncertainty...