After a delay of several months, legislative changes implementing the EU Directive (2003/6/EC) on insider dealing and market manipulation (the Market Abuse Directive) entered into force on July 1 2005. The implementation of the Market Abuse Directive entails the following changes: (i) the introduction of non-monetary as well as monetary administrative sanctions for manipulative actions and use of inside information in cases where the prerequisites for criminal sanctions are not available; (ii) more detailed regulation on insider registers; (iii) extending the ongoing disclosure obligation to issuers that only have applied for listing of their securities; (iv) the introduction of rules allowing an issuer to delay public disclosure on its own responsibility under certain conditions; and (v) an obligation for securities intermediaries to report any suspicious security dealings to the Finnish Financial Supervision Authority (the FSA). And, lastly, the legislative changes will extend the supervisory and investigatory powers of the FSA by giving the FSA the right to obtain information and to conduct hearings in cases of suspected market abuse.
June 30 2005
