On July 7, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a consultation paper (CP) on the evaluation of certain elements of the Short Selling Regulation (Regulation 236/2012) (SSR).

The consultation is intended to help ESMA provide technical advice to the European Commission (EC) in respect to three main SSR aspects:

  • the scope and functioning of the exemption for market making activities;
  • the procedure for imposing a short-term ban on short selling where there is a significant fall in price of a financial instrument; and
  • the transparency of net short positions, and related reporting and disclosure requirements.

ESMA will evaluate to what extent the SSR has achieved its original objectives in terms of relevance, effectiveness, coherence and efficiency. Aiming to improve the SSR, the technical advice to the EC will propose potential changes to the legal framework.

The CP consultation closes on September 4. ESMA expects to publish its final report by December 31.

The CP is available here.