Activites

• 2004/12/31 Final act published in Official Journal
  • Directive 2004/109
  • OJ L 390 31.12.2004, p. 0038-0057
• 2004/12/15 Final act signed
• 2004/12/15 End of procedure in Parliament
• #2626
• 2004/12/02 Council Meeting
• 2004/12/02 Act adopted by Council after Parliament's 1st reading
• #2580
• 2004/05/11 Council Meeting
• 2004/03/30 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T5-0220/2004 summary

    In giving a first reading (by 390 votes in favour to 8 against with 102 abstention) to the proposed directive on the harmonisation of transparency requirements on securities markets, MEPs adopted amendments agreed as part of a compromise with the Council, negotiated by rapporteur Peter SKINNER (PES, South East). This means the measure should be adopted after first reading, before the end of the present Parliamentary term in June. The agreement means a rejection, supported by Parliament, of mandatory quarterly reporting. Instead, there will be a far lighter approach, with issuers making public statements by management during the first half and second half of the financial year. These statements will have an explanation of events or transactions that have taken place and a general description of the financial position. Companies publishing quarterly reports will not have to issue these statements. Mr Skinner has argued that quarterly reporting "is an extremely costly mechanism and it encourages management to focus on short term earnings performance at the expense of long term strategy." The compromise included a request to the Commission to come forward with proposals on remuneration, and it provides for a voluntary approach to payments to governments. Member States should encourage extractive companies (mining, oil etc.) to disclose payments to governments in their annual financial report. Regarding the accounting systems of third countries, where Member States consider third countries systems to be equivalent to those within the EU, they may exempt issuers from some of the requirements under this directive.�

• 2004/03/29 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 2004/02/17 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A5-0079/2004
• #2546
• 2003/11/25 Council Meeting
  • 2546
• #X019
• 2003/11/24 Council Meeting
• #2537
• 2003/11/04 Council Meeting
  • 2537
• 2003/05/15 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2003/03/26 Legislative proposal published
  • COM(2003)0138 summary

    PURPOSE : to harmonise the transparency requirements with regard to information about issuers whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market. CONTENT : transparency about publicly traded companies is essential for the functioning of capital markets, enhancing their overall efficiency and liquidity. This proposal for a directive should markedly improve the information made available to all investors about publicly traded companies on regulated securities markets within the European Union. The current initiative is one of the priority actions in the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP), endorsed by Heads of State and Government at the Lisbon European Council in March 2000. In addition, the proposal is part of a strategy for overhauling securities markets legislation, in particular for achieving a greater level of transparency and information in respect of issuers whose securities are traded on regulated markets. The proposal belongs to a "disclosure and transparency agenda" on which the European Institutions are currently moving forward. The proposed directive envisages to impose a level of transparency and information commensurate with the aims of sound investor protection and market efficiency. In order to achieve these aims, the current initiative should be consistent with all the legislative initiatives mentioned above: its scope should be extended from official to regulated markets, thus bringing second tier markets within its scope, it should ensure greater openness to the world of international finance in terms of use of languages; and also in the use of modern information technologies. Finally, the proposal should constitute an appropriate response to developments in the US, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, for promoting European capital markets. The initiative reforms requirements in the form of standardised information at a certain point (periodic information) or information on an ongoing basis. Its objectives are: - to improve annual financial reporting by security issuers through disclosure of an annual financial report within three months; - to improve periodic disclosure of share issuers over a financial year, by introducing a pragmatic policy mix of more detailed half-yearly financial report and less demanding quarterly financial information for the first and third quarter of a financial year. This solution is in the middle of two extreme positions: one extreme position would be to require three fully-fledged quarterly financial reports based on highest international standards, similar to the requirements in the US. The other extreme would be to stay at a level of corporate transparency where the European Union has been for twenty years (prior to the Internal Market). Such an extreme position would ignore that capital markets now act and react much faster, that the allocation of capital amongst publicly traded companies is subject to more competition. Finally, investors investing in several Member States should benefit from more reliable and standardised financial information cycles instead of solely relying on ad-hoc disclosure issued by companies. This does not mean that the new rules on interim financial information should replace continuous disclosure obligations; - to introduce half-yearly financial reporting to issuers of only debt securities who are currently not subject to any interimreporting requirement at all. Again, the Commission pursues a very pragmatic approach; - to base on-going disclosure of changes to important share holdings in issuers on proper capital market directed thinking. This should lead to more frequent information within stricter disclosure deadlines; - to update existing Community law on the information provided to security holders (holders of shares or debt securities) in general meetings through proxies and electronic means. This aspect is particularly important for investors resident abroad. The current initiative will ensure sound investor protection and the properly functioning of financial markets. As a consequence, it should lead to the effective removal of national barriers for issuers seeking access to regulated markets not only in their home Member State, but also in other Member States.�

  • DG [{'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/internal_market/', 'title': 'Internal Market and Services'}],

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(2003)0138
• Debate in Council: 2537
• Debate in Council: 2546
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A5-0079/2004
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0220/2004
• : Directive 2004/109
• : OJ L 390 31.12.2004, p. 0038-0057

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)