In December 2015, an Act implementing into Dutch law the amended Transparency Directive (Implementatiewet Wijzigingsrichtlijn Transparantie, the Implementation Act) was adopted. The Implementation Act is expected to enter into force sometime in early February 2016 and, among other things, amends the Act on the Financial Supervision (Wet op het financieel toezicht, AFS)
The Implementation Act provides for a number of new requirements for issuing institutions (uitgevende instellingen). Some of the most important changes to the AFS include:
- issuing institutions are required to disclose their home Member State to the competent authority of its home Member State as well as the competent authorities of all relevant host Member States. The European Securities and Markets Authority has published a standard form for this purpose;
- the requirement for issuing institutions to publish quarterly reports (on, amongst other things, important events and transactions and the consequences thereof for the issuing institution’s financial position) is abolished (with retroactive effect to 1 January 2016);
- a new requirement for issuing institutions to publish an annual report on payments made to governments for specific business sectors; and
- changes relating to shareholding notifications.
The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Autoriteit Financiële Markten) will publish on its website a Q&A regarding the changes to shareholding notifications.
View the Implementation Act (Dutch only), 17 December 2015.
View the AFM’s news item on the new requirements (Dutch only), 25 January 2015.