Europe: Advocate General Sharpston considers Prospectus Regulation and Directive

Article 29 of Regulation 809/2004 sets out certain requirements in respect of the electronic publication of a prospectus, including that it should be easily accessible. This requirement was amongst several matters considered by Advocate General Sharpston in an opinion delivered last month: Michael Timmel v Aviso Zeta AG (Case C‑359/12). The Advocate General has advised that where a prospectus is published electronically on a website, making access subject to registration and acceptance of a disclaimer and provision of an e-mail address would not be compatible with the concept of easy accessibility under Article 29.

The Advocate General also considered Article 22(2) of the Regulation, which sets out the minimum information to be included in a base prospectus. She has advised that Article 22(2) should be interpreted to mean that information that, in principle, is required to be provided and which was not known at the time of approval of the base prospectus, but was known at the time of publication of a supplement to that prospectus, does not have to be included in the supplement where that information does not give rise to a significant new factor, material mistake or inaccuracy relating to the information included in the prospectus which is capable of affecting the assessment of the securities for the purposes of Article 16(1) of the Prospectus Directive 2003/71/EC.