Prohibitions

In 2016, BaFin examined a total of 97 cases (previous year: 185) for compliance with the prohibition on naked short selling and certain transactions in credit default swaps (CDSs). The investigations, some of which were conducted in response to complaints filed by market participants, related to sales made by both companies and private individuals.

BaFin discontinued 78 investigations (previous year: 148), most of which related to voluntary self-reports due to minor infringements, caused by human error, for example a misunderstanding when the customer placed an order. As at the end of 2016, the investigation of 8 cases had not yet been completed (previous year: 17); of this total, 2 date from 2015 and 6 from 2016. BaFin referred another 11 cases to other EU authorities for reasons of competence (previous year: 17). 11 cases were pursued further in administrative fine proceedings (previous year: 4).

Transparency requirements

331 parties subject to the notification requirement (previous year: 289), as in the previous years mainly from the United Kingdom and the USA, notified BaFin in 2016 of a total of 14,492 net short positions (previous year: 13,525) in 249 different shares (previous year: 234). This corresponds to an average of 57 notifications per trading day. A total of 4,151 notifications (previous year: 4,074) had to be published in the Federal Gazette in 2016, because the threshold of 0.5% of the share capital in issue had been crossed or reached. In addition, BaFin received 94 notifications for federal government debt securities (initial threshold: 0.5%), slightly more than in the previous year (67 notifications). By contrast, as in the previous year, there were no notifications for debt securities of the federal states in 2016 (initial threshold: 0.1%). As in previous years, net short positions were built in shares on the regulated market (see Figure 14 "Notifications broken down by index").

BaFin investigated 61 violations of the transparency requirements for net short positions in 2016 (previous year: 58). It discontinued a total of 25 investigations (previous year: 29). 18 were still pending at the end of 2016 (previous year: 28), 5 of them relating to 2014, 8 to 2015 and 5 to 2016.

Figure 14 Notifications broken down by index

Notifications broken down by index

Source: BaFin