The Board has imposed violation charges on Norman and Helgeland Sparebank equivalent to two and three times each party's annual listing fee respectively for other breaches of the Stock Exchange regulations.
The Board's decisions may be appealed to the Stock Exchange Appeals Committee, and the time limit for any appeal to be submitted is two weeks.
Late publication of interim reports for the fourth quarter of 1999 led to violation charges being imposed on Storebrand, Steen & Strøm and Olav Thon Eiendomsselskap. The Stock Exchange Regulations required publication of these interim reports to take place before 1 March 2000, but the companies in question published their interim reports on 8 March, 8 March and 17 March respectively. The Stock Exchange Board has imposed a violation charge equivalent to each company's annual listing fee.
Interim reports represent one of the most important sources of information for the evaluation of companies' shares. The provision of frequent and timely financial information is essential for an efficient and well functioning securities market. The requirements of the Stock Exchange Regulations in respect of routine interim reporting were accordingly increased in 1999. This included the introduction of a requirement for quarterly reporting, and a requirement that an interim report be produced for the fourth quarter of the year which would also represent the reporting company's provisional results for the full year. All listed companies have been made aware of these requirements by means including the publication of Stock Exchange circulars. The Oslo Stock Exchange found it necessary to criticise a number of companies for breaches of these requirements during autumn 1999, and in so doing made it clear that it would closely monitor this type of breach.
The news that Norman had entered into an agreement for the supply of anti-virus programs in co-operation with Microsoft was first published in the Oslo Stock Exchange's information system on 1 December 1999 despite having been made available on the company's web site pages since 1 November.
A violation charge of two times the annual listing fee is levied on the company for breach of the duty of disclosure.
Helgeland Sparebank held a meeting of its Supervisory Board on 18 February 2000 without giving the Oslo Stock Exchange notice of the meeting. The Oslo Stock Exchange similarly did not receive minutes of the meeting. The Oslo Stock Exchange was accordingly not informed in the required manner that the meeting had approved a dividend of NOK 3.00 per primary capital certificate and that primary capital certificates would be traded ex-dividend after 21 February 2000. The Oslo Stock Exchange only became aware of this information on 1 March 2000. A violation charge of three times the annual listing fee is levied on Helgeland Sparebank for breach of the duty of disclosure.
