The Capital Markets Board of Turkey has introduced its Amendment on the Communiqué on Market Abuse Serial No. VI-104.1.a, which was published on 18 February 2017 in the Official Gazette numbered 29983 (the "Amendment"). In the Amendment, Article 6 (Market Abuse Actions through Communication or Correspondence) and Article 8 (Actions Which Are Not Deemed as Market Abuse Actions) of the Communiqué on Market Abuse VI-104.1(the "Communiqué") are amended.
In the original version of paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the Communiqué; to give false, wrong or misleading information, rumor, inform, make material public disclosures, make comments or prepare reports in such manner to affect the prices, values of capital market instruments or the decisions of investors, or with respect to market indicators that may affect them used to be considered and treated as market abuse action. However with the Amendment, the abovementioned actions shall be considered and treated as market abuse action, if the persons who realised the said actions, gave any kind of order or made any kind of transaction with respect to the related capital market instrument before or after realising the related action.
With the Amendment, the same rule applies to paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Communiqué. Now, spreading of the information referred to in the first paragraph by the persons who know or are required to know that they are false, wrong or misleading shall be deemed as a market abuse action, only if the persons who realised the aforementioned actions gave any kind of order or made any kind of transaction with respect to the related capital market instrument before or after realising the related action.
The Amendment has also clarified the wording of the article regarding the actions which shall not be deemed as actions causing market abuse. In addition, the Amendment has extended the exception related to the actions by the press and clarified that the actions which are not within the scope of Article 104 of the Capital Market Law No 6362, shall not be deemed as market abuse actions. In brief, Article 104 of the Capital Market Law No 6362 provides that actions and transactions which cannot be explained with a reasonable economic or financial justification, which are deteriorating the functioning of exchange markets and other organized markets in security, openness and stability shall be deemed as market abuse actions, provided that they do not constitute a criminal liability.
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