May 29. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) received 282 communications of operations suspected of constituting market abuse in 2022, an amount that fell by 2.8% compared to the previous year, as reported by the supervisor on Monday through a statement.
The supervisor explains that suspicious operations and orders that could constitute market abuse must be notified to the competent authorities which, in the case of Spain, is the CNMV itself, according to the European Union Regulation on market abuse. When such communications affect foreign securities, the authorities redirect them to the competent authority of the security in question.
These notifications are regulated in article 16 of Regulation 296/2014 on market abuse and its implementing regulation RDC 2016/957. This regime does not include communications on these matters that may reach the CNMV through the ‘whistleblowing’ channel.
The CNMV indicates that the range of financial instruments to which these notices refer is wide, although 85% of the total communications received in 2022 refer to variable income instruments, the same percentage as in 2021.
If we look at the type of conduct, communications about the use or attempted use of privileged information account for almost 73% of the total, a higher percentage than in previous years.
The senders of communications are mainly Spanish investment services companies, followed by other national authorities (CA) and the different markets.
According to the information provided by each entity, the CNMV classifies the communications received taking into account whether the information is complete, whether the description of the operation is accurate and whether the indications are sufficient, reasonable and plausible regarding possible conduct contrary to the market regulations. Its quality has been classified as medium/low, medium or medium/high, thus maintaining the evaluation criteria established in previous years.
In this way, the supervisor points out that, in general, the quality has remained at a level similar to that of previous years, since 58% of the communications received have a medium/high quality, compared to 62% in 2021 and to 57% of 2020.
In the assessment made by the CNMV on the quality of the communications, the degree of precision of the explanations is taken into account to show plausible indications of infringement; the temporal logic or sense of the orders on the security in possible cases of use of privileged information; analysis of the investor profile of the suspicious client and its relationship with the issuer or financial instrument in question, among other aspects.
Regarding the reporting period for suspicious transactions, they must be sent to the competent authority without delay. In this sense, the authorities of the European Union have agreed within the framework of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) a period of 60 calendar days, as a guideline for what is generally considered reasonable.
The number of communications received by financial entities with a certain time lag in 2022 amounts to 30, sent by 19 entities. However, only eight communications were sent with an unjustified delay.
