ECJ Judgement On Access To Prospectuses In Electronic Form

It is rare that a ruling of the ECJ deals with the interpretation of the Prospectus Directive regime (composed of inter alia Directive 2003/71/EC on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading (the Prospectus Directive) and the related Commission Regulation (EC) No 809/2004 (the Prospectus Regulation). On May 15th 2014 the ECJ gave a ruling in the Michael Timel v Aviso Zeta AG case (C-359/12).

A number of questions were raised by the referring court on prospectus content and publication. In the ECJ's responses to these queries they have clarified the following points:

1. Art. 22(2) of the Prospectus Regulation is to be interpreted as meaning that information required under Art. 22(1) which, although not known at the time of publication of the base prospectus, nevertheless was known at the time of publication of a supplement to that prospectus must be published in that supplement if the information involves a