Starting 3 July 2016, the European Market Abuse Regulation (596/2014)(the Regulation) will apply directly in all EU Member States. The articles of the Market Abuse Directive (2003/6/EU) that are currently implemented in the Dutch Financial Supervision Act (FSA) will be abolished on 3 July 2016 and replaced by the Regulation. The Regulation is elaborated in secondary EU legislation, guidelines and technical standards, some of which are still in draft form, so subject to changes.

In combination with the Regulation, the European Directive on criminal sanctions for insider dealing and market manipulation (2014/57/EU)(the Directive) has to be implemented by the Dutch legislator on 3 July 2016 at the latest. The Directive increases the criminal sanctions for violation of the Regulation. However, because the Dutch criminal sanctions already fulfil these standards, the Directive will not lead to material changes. Nevertheless, the Dutch government has taken this opportunity to diversify and increase the severity of the administrative sanction regime for violation of the Regulation. The Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) will, for example, be able to give a public warning to disclose the name of the person responsible for the infringement, impose a temporary ban of a person from dealing on own account, and will have the power to impose maximum administrative pecuniary sanctions of at least three times the amount of the profits gained or losses avoided because of such infringement. The Dutch implementation of the Directive, as well as secondary EU legislation on market abuse, is still in draft form, so changes may still occur.