Identifying Shareholders And Disseminating Information After 1 July 2013.

The new Corporate Governance Act, effective as of 1 July 2013, enables a listed company to identify:

• who its shareholders are
• how big their stake is
• what they hold

Under the new law, shareholders can take the initiative as well and ask the company to start an identification process. A shareholder can also request the company to make information available to the other shareholders.

What are the key elements of the Corporate Governance Act?

• The first threshold for notifying the AFM of capital holdings and/or rights of control - gross long positions - is reduced from 5% to 3%; the former 5% threshold is maintained as a second notification threshold.
• There is a new notification requirement for gross short positions – i.e. financial instruments the value which increases if the share price drops - and the same thresholds apply as for gross long positions. Net short positions have to be notified under the EU Shortselling Regulation. The AFM has