Tallinn Stock Exchange imposed a penalty of EEK 250 000 on Hansapank

15.04.2005 TLN

Press release of Tallinn Stock Exchange
15.04.2005

On 15 April 2005, the Listing and Surveillance Committee of the Tallinn Stock Exchange decided to impose a penalty of EEK 250 000 on Hansapank for violating the TSE Rules.

According to the TSE Rules, an issuer must immediately publish information about circumstances pertaining to the issuer which are not directly regulated by the requirements of the Rules, but which are not publicly known and which for their impact on the issuer’s assets, liabilities, operations or reputation may affect the price of the listed securities. An issuer must also publish a news release on the TSE to comment on any price sensitive rumours about it, regardless of the correctness of such information. An issuer must inform, with sufficient clarity, its parent company and its relevant persons of their obligations in informing the shareholders and ensure that the parent company meets this obligation.

On Monday, 21 March, Swedbank applied to the TSE for suspending trade. Swedbank noted in the application that it had entered into negotiations with certain minority shareholders of Hansapank over the price and other conditions of takeover, and announced that it will inform the public about the results of the negotiations via the TSE system as soon as possible. Swedbank also opined that information about the negotiations could leak to the market. The TSE found that suspension of trade till the results of the negotiations are available was not substantiated and requested that the fact of the negotiations be published via the TSE system. Swedbank proposed to publish the relevant information and TSE suspended trade pending the notice. Later Swedbank refused to publish a notice and the TSE continued to trade in the Hansapank shares.

In the articles published in the newspapers of Tuesday, 22 March, the Communications Manager of Swedbank, Mr. Henrik Kolga publicly confirmed the fact of the negotiations. To ensure an equal informing of the investors, the TSE asked both Hansapank and Swedbank to immediately comment on the newspaper articles via the TSE system. Regardless of the TSE’s request, Hansapank did not comment on the rumours and Swedbank published information on the negotiations in the TSE system only at 12:46 p.m.

“The duty of the stock exchange as the operator of the regulated market is to ensure the regular and legal operation of the market, that is to ensure trade, the publication of information, and the equal treatment of the investors. A regulated market is based on reliability and transparency, which is mainly secured by a prompt publication of information. Suspension of trade as an extraordinary short-term measure cannot serve as a means of organising the normal operation of the market,” said Jaanus Erlemann, representative of the TSE in his comment on the background of the decision.

The committee finds that whenever possible, information must be published on the earliest opportunity and all efforts must be made to avoid long-term suspension of trade. A delay of several hours in the publication of important information cannot be regarded as due publication. According to the committee, Swedbank had every possibility to duly publish the information, and not doing so, Hansapank had a clear responsibility, despite the lack of official information, to inform about the rumours via the stock exchange system by adding that it had no official information to confirm or refute them.