CESR Starts Work On Employee Share Scheme Prospectuses And Publishes The European Commission’s Request To CESR For Assistance

CESR is publishing today a letter from Commissioner Charlie McCreevy to CESR’s Chairs requesting CESR’s assistance on the issue of employee share schemes. The European Commission is requesting regulators to adopt a common light-touch approach under the Prospectus Directive and Regulation for offers to employees.

The work requested by the Commission fits well into CESR’s Prospectus Expert group’s current work plan. Following market participants’ comments on the need to remove existing obstacles for offers to employees (par. 113 to 121 CESR’s Report on the supervisory functioning of the Prospectus Directive and Regulation (Ref.CESR/07-225)), CESR has decided to undertake Level 3 work on this issue to alleviate, to the extent possible, the negative impact that the Prospectus Directive appears to be having on employee share schemes until new legislative actions can be undertaken.