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Violation charge for SuperOffice ASA
At its meeting 22 October the Board of Oslo Børs resolved to impose a violation charge on SuperOffice ASA equivalent to four times the company's annual listing fee, i.e. NOK 440,000. The company breached the duty of disclosure set out in the Stock Exchange Regulations in relation to a contract with the German company DATEV signed in August 2003. Information on the contract was published in the newspaper Finansavisen on Monday 25 August 2003, and the company submitted a stock excahnge announcement about the contract to Oslo Børs prior to the start of trading on the same morning. However it transpired from information subsequently released by the company that the contract with DATEV was signed as early as 11 August 2003.
Oslo Børs is of the view, taking into account that the company chose to issue a stock exchange announcement and to publicise the contract through the media, that the contract with DATEV represented price sensitive information and was subject to the duty of disclosure. Oslo Børs believes that the company should have disclosed this information on 11 August, and in any case no later than prior to the start of trading on 12 August, i.e. some two weeks before the contract was announced. The Board took a particularly serious view of the fact, as disclosed by the company itself, that having contacted the press on 20 August SuperOffice then awaited press coverage of the contract before submitting a stock exchange announcement. This caused a further material delay in releasing the information.
This decision may be appealed to the Oslo Børs Appeals Committee. Any appeal must be submitted within two weeks.
A more detailed description of this matter and of the reasons for the Board’s decision will shortly be published on the Oslo Børs web pages at: www.oslobors.no/ob/vedtak.
