The AMF announces a temporary short selling ban on certain shares until the end of the trading day of March 17

Pursuant to Article 23 of the European Short Selling Regulation, the AMF has decided to prohibit short selling in the most impacted shares by the fall in prices during the trading day of March 16, 2020. Under Article 23 of the Regulation, a national competent authority shall decide to temporary restrict short selling in case of a significant fall in price of a financial instrument in one day. By significant fall, the European framework provides a more than 10% decrease for liquids shares, a more than 20% fall for illiquids share when the share price is higher than 0,50 euro and a more than 40% fall when share price is below 0,50 euro.

With immediate effect, the temporary prohibition is valid until the end of the trading day of March 17, 2020.

The AMF follows the situation in financial markets carefully and is contact with other authorities. It reminds that the ESMA announced on March 16, 2020, its decision temporarly requiring net short positions holders to report new positions of 0,1% of the issued shares capital and above.