More and more Albanian companies raise money from investors through bonds, mostly by private placement. Once the securities are traded, a set of rules comes with them that many issuers still do not know well: the rules against market abuse.
These rules are in Law No. 62/2020 "On Capital Markets" and in Regulation No. 71/2023 of the Albanian Financial Supervisory Authority (AFSA) "On the Prohibition of Market Abuse", drafted on the model of the European regulation on market abuse.
The three main rules:
1. Trading on inside information is prohibited. Inside information is any precise information, not yet public, that would significantly affect the price if it were made public. Whoever has it may not trade, advise others to trade or disclose it other than in the course of their duties.
2. Market manipulation is prohibited. Trades that give false signals about supply, demand or price, or spreading false information, are breaches even when they bring no profit.
3. The issuer makes inside information public. As a rule, as soon as possible. Disclosure may be delayed only under certain conditions, and AFSA must be notified.
The issuer's practical obligations:
- Insider list. The issuer keeps a list of the persons who have inside information, including external advisers, and informs them of their obligations.
- Managers' transactions. Managers and persons closely associated with them notify the issuer and AFSA of their transactions in the issuer's securities.
- Internal procedure. Who decides whether information is inside information, who discloses it and how the decision is documented.
Intermediaries have obligations too. Market operators and investment firms must have systems to detect suspicious orders and transactions and to report them to AFSA in a suspicious transaction and order report (STOR).
What to do now. Before the issue, or as soon as your securities start trading, put in place the procedure for inside information and the insider list. Train managers and finance staff: most breaches come not from bad intent but from not knowing the rules.