NEWS

Dow Jones reporter Margo Patrick writes (October 1, 2009) that “measures to bring more transparency to short selling in companies’ shares will be toughened, but the practice won’t be banned entirely, the U.K. Financial Services Authority said Thursday.

“The FSA said it was still working on plans to require disclosure – both public and private – on significant short sales of all company shares. It currently requires short sellers to disclose positions greater than 0.25% of financial company shares, or on any company involved in a rights issue.

“The markets watchdog said those rules will be expanded to include short sales in all company shares traded on U.K. markets, but that it will wait for European or international rules to be applied before introducing a new domestic regime. It said new measures could include the requirement to privately tell it about positions representing as little of 0.1% of a company’s shares, in line with guidelines being worked on by the Committee for European Securities Regulators.

“Public disclosure thresholds under FSA and European proposals would be on positions of 0.5% or more.”