FINANCIAL COMMUNICATION: FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICES - 2019 EDITION

24 Article 17.6 of the Market Abuse Regulation specifies that this prior authorisation procedure is not applicable if the credit or financial institution intending to delay the disclosure of insider information meets the three conditions provided for in the above-mentioned article 17.4 (immediate disclosure is likely to prejudice the legitimate interests of the issuer, delay of disclosure is not likely to mislead the public and the credit or financial institution is able to ensure the confidentiality of that information). Pursuant to article 5.1 of the Implementing Regulation of June 29, 2016 laying down implementing technical standards with regard to the technical means for appropriate public disclosure of inside information and for delaying the public disclosure of inside information, and the AMF Instruction on the notification procedure for delaying disclosure of insider information 26 , the issuer must get in touch with their contact person at the AMF’s issuer management department, who will inform them of how to proceed in a secure manner. Lastly, issuers setting up an equity line programme who have decided to delay the disclosure of insider information should immediately suspend execution of their equity line programme. The AMF has reiterated that being in possession of insider information is an obstacle to taking an equity drawdown decision in an equity line programme if said information has not been made public. Consequently, an issuer that decides to temporarily postpone publication of insider information must immediately suspend execution of this programme until such time as the information has been published 27 . The AMF has reiterated the best practices to adopt in the event of doubt as to whether information, held by a listed company, is insider information , for example when the company is experiencing a number of disruptions to its operations. In such situations, and to ensure equal access to accurate information for investors, the AMF encourages issuers to disclose, as soon as possible , the information in question. Such a disclosure should be accompanied by details of the measures being taken to address the disruptions, and regular updates regarding the progress of these remedial measures should be provided. The AMF also reiterated the importance of providing investors with accurate information as well as the measures that issuers must implement to ensure that their employees do not disclose or use for personal gain any information of which they become aware during the course of their duties. One way in which issuers can prevent insider trading 28 is by training all of their employees. 26 – AMF Instruction no. 2016-07 on the notification procedure for delaying disclosure of insider information. 27 – AMF Position/ Recommendation no. 2012-18 – Market information when setting up an equity line programme (see, in particular, section 3, updated on January 8, 2019). 28 – AMF press release of December 21, 2018 - Disclosure of inside information - Best practices.