Market Abuse Regulations are being revised and updated. Touch ensures that organisations are compliant with existing, amended, and new obligations.

Market abuse regulations (MAR) have been in a state of almost constant flux for several years. MAR establishes a robust framework to preserve market integrity and investor confidence with numerous rules aiming to prevent insider dealing, unlawful disclosure of inside information and market manipulation.

From 1 January 2021, there have been two market abuse regimes for both the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU MAR) and the new UK market abuse regime (UK MAR). UK MAR was designed to ensure that UK markets and financial instruments continue to be subject to the same requirements as under EU MAR.

Ever-changing compliance obligations

Both have been amended multiple times since then. For example, on 3 August 2022, a new EU regulation 2022/1210 came into effect, which changed the templates for insider lists and clarified that any person acting on behalf of, or for the account of, an issuer must produce and maintain their own insider lists. There were also changes to liquidity contracts.  

Meanwhile, changes made to UK MAR came into effect on 29 June 2021, including the same update to insider lists as were made to EU MAR and changes to PDMR transactions, which increased the time period within which issuers must make public any PDMR transactions to within two working days of receiving notification of a transaction from the PDMR or PCA – prior to that the stipulation was no later than three business days after the date of the transaction. The UK also amended the maximum sentences for insider dealing and market manipulation offences, increasing them from 7 to 10 years.

More recently, in December 2022 the European Commission put forward more proposed changes to the insider list regime in the Market Abuse Regulation as part of a package of measures to develop the EU’s Capital Markets Union (CMU). Part of this proposal is the Listing Act, which includes important changes to the EU MAR. 

Those changes will have a significant impact on the MAR compliance practices of EU listed issuers – and for those that also operate in the UK (and vice versa). The aim of the changes is to improve legal clarity, reduce compliance requirements on issuers, boost the attractiveness of EU capital markets to investors, and balance that with investor protection and market integrity. The changes are being deliberated by the European Council and Parliament.

Touch: Ensuring up to date compliance

The important point here is that regulations and compliance obligations are changing all the time, which can be a time consuming and resource-heavy task for organisations to keep up with.

That’s why Touch takes care of it all for you. We ensure that we meet all compliance obligations, including MiFID II, GDPR, and MAR – as well as other local, regional and industry obligations, and we are fully focused on being ahead of the game when it comes to amendments to existing regulations, and to the introduction of new requirements.

We were the first company in Europe to introduce call-recording-as-a-service over a decade ago, meaning that we have accumulated exceptional experience and a highly specialised team of experts.

We have been working with organisations in the financial services, providing not just technological expertise but also advice and experience, ever since. To find out more about how Touch can take the headache of call and data recording away from you, and ensure you’re always up to date with the latest regulations, contact us today.