A stricter duty to disclose information to the market in Denmark?:The dilemma faced by Danish companies, and their options under the decision by the Danish Securities Council in the TDC case

Artiklen analyserer børs- og kapitalmarkedsrettens krav til de noterede selskabers offentliggørelse af kursrelevante oplysninger. Retstilstanden har hidtil været behersket af en realitetsgrundsætning: offentliggørelse skal ske, når den kursrelevante begivenhed er en realitet, ikke før og ikke senere. Finanstilsynet håndhæver imidlertid nu en skærpet fortolkning af pligten og dermed et fremrykket tidspunkt for offentliggørelsen. Artiklen analyserer dels rigtigheden af og hjemmelen til dette, dels hvordan selskaberne kan forholde sig, indtil spørgsmålet afklares.The article analyses the requirements under stock exchange law regarding the disclosure obligations by publicly traded Danish companies of information which may affect the share price. These requirements follow from the Market Abuse Directive (MAD). The legal position in Denmark and other Nordic countries has been governed to date by a reality principle: disclosure must occur when the event of relevance to the share price becomes a reality - not before and not later. However, following a circular letter of April 2007, the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority has applied a stricter interpretation of the duty, and therewith an advanced date for disclosure. The new interpretation is based on a disputed decision of 21 December 2006 by the Securities Council in the case on the takeover of TeleDanmark (TDC), Denmark's biggest takeover to date, which took a complicated course. The article analyses the correctness of and the legal base for the stricter interpretation of the law, and discusses how publicly traded Danish companies and their advisers should act under this new interpretation