Commission welcomes political agreement on the Listing Act

The Commission welcomes the political agreement reached yesterday by the European Parliament and the Council on the Commission’s proposals for a new Listing Act. The package consists of new rules on prospectuses, market abuse, financial research and multiple-vote share structures.

The Listing Act will help alleviate the requirements companies face both at the moment of listing and after they have been listed, and will contribute to preserving transparency, investor protection and market integrity. The Listing Act will also contribute to the Commission’s objective of simplifying reporting obligations and reducing administrative burdens by 25%. It will also address the issue of fragmentation in national laws that restricts the flexibility of companies to issue multiple-vote shares after going public. The latter will be particularly important for innovative scale-ups.

The Listing Act is part of the Capital Markets Union package presented by the Commission in December 2022.

Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union, said: “The agreement on the Listing Act is an important step in making listing in the EU more attractive for companies, allowing for them to tap more diversified funding. It introduces targeted measures and flexibility across the full listing cycle, working at the level of incentives and makes the burden of regulatory compliance more proportionate, in particular for smaller issuers. It is an important step to drive up the level of listings in the EU, to make the EU capital markets more attractive and the EU economy more competitive.”

Didier Reynders, Commissioner for Justice, said: “With today’s agreement, we are empowering business owners across the EU to use multiple-vote share structures when listing their companies on SME growth markets and other multilateral trading facilities. This will allow them to raise funds through stocks without losing control of their company. This new EU legislation gives entrepreneurs an opportunity to expand their business with their long-term vision in mind, while safeguarding the rights of other shareholders.”