The FIN-FSA’s Capital Markets Supervision is currently processing a large number of prospectus and takeover bid cases as well as other market supervision issues. This may affect case processing timetables. Although we aim to respond to contacts as quickly as possible, we may not be able to answer all enquiries and interpretation questions.

The FIN-FSA’s activities are risk-based. We prioritise cases based on their supervisory significance, urgency and potential market impact. We focus our available resources primarily on discharging our statutory tasks and on cases most significant to market functioning and investor protection.

The FIN-FSA’s tasks do not include consulting market participants or providing advice on individual business issues. In significant unclear interpretation issues addressed to the FIN-FSA, we expect the entity to always present their own reasoned view of the interpretation of the applicable regulations.

Regarding prospectus and takeover bid projects, we urge market participants to reserve sufficient time for preparing the projects and to contact the FIN-FSA in good time about upcoming applications and their preliminary timetables. Advance information about future projects supports the planning of case processing and promotes the efficiency of the supervision process.

Prospectuses, offer documents and other documents submitted for processing must be carefully prepared and should meet the requirements of the applicable regulations already at the application stage. In our experience, inadequately prepared documents and extensive changes made during processing increase the number of comment rounds and thus affect the overall processing time of a case.

If necessary, the FIN-FSA may, in accordance with Article 20 of the Prospectus Regulation, set a new scrutiny period of seven or ten working days from the time a new version of the draft prospectus has been submitted. Although our goal is to process prospectuses within seven, ten or 20 days, market participants should be aware that, due to an exceptionally high workload, the scope of a case or the inadequate quality of documents submitted, processing may require more time than usual in individual cases.

For further information, please contact:

• Sari Helminen, Head of Division, sari.helminen(at)fiva.fi or tel. +358 9 183 5264