Changes To The National Stock Exchange Of Lithuania Trading Rules

On 27 June 2002, amendments and supplements to the Trading Rules of the National Stock Exchange of Lithuania (NSEL) came into force.

The amendments and supplements to the NSEL Trading Rules were made due to the following reasons:

European (Association) Agreement as of 12 June 1995, under which Lithuania is obliged gradually to harmonise national legalisation with the European Communities law.
Lithuania's EU Accession Programme, under which by the end of 2003 Lithuania shall have transposed and prepared for full implementation of EU legislation, except for the provisions, which will require transitional periods.

The main goal of the amendments and supplements of the NSEL Trading Rules is to harmonise the Trading Rules with the EU law requirements, set out in the European Parliament and Council Directive (2001/34/EB). This Directive regulates the admission of securities to the NSEL Official Trading List and disclosure of information about those securities. Therefore, the amendments and supplements to the NSEL Trading Rules cover those particular areas. When harmonising their regulation with the Directive, amendments and supplements of the NSEL Trading Rules aim at transposing mandatory and some of the dispositive provisions.

Some new, as well as the improved old definitions were included in the NSEL Trading Rules. Conditions, which the issuer and its securities (shares, T-bills, debt securities, depository receipts), to be included into the Official Trading List, have to comply with, excluding certain exceptions, were modified and supplemented. Additional new obligations were set for issuers, whose securities are listed in the Official Trading List. Particular attention was paid to the issuer's duty to prepare and publish the Information Bulletin regarding the admission of the securities to the Official Trading List. General rules on preparation of the Information Bulletin were stipulated as well as the order and ways of its announcement, the content of the Information Bulletin in specific cases as well as its outline, depending on whether shares, debt securities or depository receipts are sought to be included (three new annexes to the Trading Rules were drawn, respectively). Amendments and supplements to the NSEL Trading Rules provide for cases when the issuer may be partially or fully released from the duty to publish the Information Bulletin as well as to be allowed not to include certain information in the Information Bulletin. Besides, the amendments and supplements to the NSEL Trading Rules set forth new conditions, based on which the NSEL Management Board can refuse to include securities to the Official Trading List. Taking into consideration provisions of the Directive, a longer period was defined during which the NSEL Management Board would have to make the decision regarding admission or refusal to admit securities into the Official Trading List. The amendments and supplements of the NSEL Trading Rules also grant the NSEL Management Board the right to publicly announce the fact of violation by the issuer when the issuer does not meet its obligations related to the admission of its securities to the Official Trading List.

The amended and supplemented NSEL Trading Rules can be viewed on the NSEL web-site www.nse.lt

For more information please contact Algirdas Peksys, Head of the NSEL Legal Unit at (+370 2) 72 36 11.