In This Issue:

- Short Selling Disclosures and Restrictions Under EU Regulations

- Short Selling Bans Introduced by Individual EU Member States

- Mandatory Central Counterparty Clearing of OTC Derivatives Under EU Regulations

- Review of the Market Abuse Directive

- Excerpt from Short Selling Disclosures and Restrictions Under EU Regulations:

The European Parliament has adopted final Regulations on short selling of shares and sovereign debt and various sets of related technical standards. The Regulations applied on 1 November 2012 and have direct effect throughout the EU. The Regulations introduce: (i) mandatory disclosure of net short positions to the regulator; (ii) restrictions on naked short selling; (iii) a prohibition on uncovered positions on sovereign credit default swaps and (iv)regulator powers to impose temporary restrictions during stressed markets. Firms must disclose to the regulator a net short position in shares or sovereign debt when the position reaches or falls below a relevant notification threshold. Derivative positions are included. The relevant thresholds are 0.2% (when the firm must make a private notification to the regulator) and 0.5% (when the firm must make a disclosure to the regulator which the regulator makes publicly available), in each case measured as a percentage of the issuer’s total issued share capital.