At its session on 25 September 2015, the Croatian Parliament adopted the Act on Amendments to the Capital Markets Act ("Act"). This Act transposes Directive 2013/50/EU and all of its subsequent amendments into Croatian law. The Act will enter into force on 21 October 2015, with the obligations regarding quarterly financial reports entering into force as of 1 January 2016.

Alongside fines and administrative measures against non-compliant issuers, the Act also regulates financial reporting by issuers whose securities are listed on the regulated market. Primarily, the Act obliges Croatian-based issuers to report to the regulated market on a quarterly, semi-annual and annual basis. However, this Act also regulates and extends the terms for preparing and publishing semi-annual and fourth quarter reports. The period during which published reports must be publicly available has been extended from five to ten years as of their first publication date.

In order to ensure the transparency of corporate ownership, the changes in voting rights that need to be reported now include all financial instruments that provide their holder with the same economic rights as bestowed through the ownership of shares or the right to acquire shares. Additionally, the Act introduces the possibility of suspending voting rights for holders of shares and financial instruments who do not comply with the notification requirements.

The Act provides a more precise determination of the home country of the issuer. The official register of regulated information (European electronic access point and unified electronic form for reporting) will be managed by the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency and the register will become the officially established national mechanism for storing and publishing regulated information.

The amendments to the Capital Markets Act grant the regulator more authority in the application of administrative sanctions and measures, including for the application on misdemeanours. All administrative measures and sanctions will be published on the website of the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency.

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