Page - 140 - in Austrian Law Journal, Volume 2/2019

ALJ 2019 Hartlieb 140 receipt and every sale of financial instruments must be reported to the issuer, even if these transactions are not mentioned in the extensive list of Art 10(2) of the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/522. Unlike in the past, under the current regulation transactions may not be exempted from the reporting obligation just because they do not send a signal to the investor public. This extension, in conjunction with the accompanying information and documentation obligations pursuant to Art 19(5) MAR, leads to an increase in administrative expenses for executives and issuers. At the same time, they face severe administrative penalties and measures under administrative law105 should they fail to comply with the reporting obligation. The risk of severe sanctions should, however, provide a particularly effective incentive to comply with the reporting obligation and thus contribute to the overall objective of market transparency. From the point of view of the market, the redesign has been successful106 to the extent that a high degree of transparency is achieved through the expansion. The main objective of market transparency takes precedence over other objectives that may be achieved by the reporting obligation. To illustrate, the acquisition of fixed-interest bonds by inheritance does not impair market integrity, nor does the disclosure of this information have any relevant value for the individual investor. Although the obligation to disclose now increases market transparency, the higher total number of reports threatens – especially on large capital markets such as the German one – an information overload which could obscure the individual investor's view of the reports that are important to him or her. 105 See Sethe & Hellgardt, supra note 1, at 197 et seq. 106 This does not change the fact that the design of Art 19 MAR is deficient in several respects. For example, the German language version contains various translation errors which make it almost impossible to solve legal problems without using the English (and partly also the French) language version. The regulatory technique also complicates the understanding of the reporting obligation, because it only arises in conjunction with various implementing acts.