On February 24, 2017, the FCA published a Policy Statement and final changes to rules on delaying the disclosure of inside information in the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. Minor changes have been made since the FCA's consultation last year. The Market Abuse Regulation requires issuers publicly to disclose inside information which directly concerns them as soon as possible. MAR obliges ESMA to prepare Guidelines which further specify when an issuer might delay disclosure of inside information. ESMA's Guidelines, published on November 20, 2016, explain what would be considered a "legitimate interest," allowing an issuer to delay disclosure of inside information. It also provides a non-exhaustive indicative list of legitimate interests of the issuer that are likely to be prejudiced by the immediate disclosure of inside information and the situations in which delay of disclosure is likely to mislead the public, which include situations where the inside information which the issuer intends to delay disclosure of is materially different from the issuer's previous public announcement. ESMA's Guidelines have applied directly across the EU since January 10, 2017.
The FCA has confirmed that it will comply with ESMA's Guidelines and the changes to the FCA's rules ensure that compliance. The final rules have been in force since February 24, 2017.
The Policy Statement and final rules are available at: https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/policy/ps17-02.pdf and ESMA's Guidelines are available at: https://www.esma.europa.eu/document/mar-guidelines-delay-in-disclosure-inside-information.
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