Beginning Feb. 1, the French market regulator will lift the short selling restrictions it implemented after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Authorit des Marchs Financiers will remove the more than two-year ban on short selling of the countrys biggest banks and other firms in order to comply with future European regulations on short selling, according to the newspaper. The future regulation apparently refers to the European Commissions proposal for regulation on short selling and credit default swaps, which will go into effect July 1, 2012.
Countries across the globe have been implementing, and some then revoking, bans on short selling since the Lehman collapse. The Netherlands, Germany and Greece instituted bans on short selling and/or naked short selling as recently as April and May 2010.
According to the WSJ, investors in France must inform the AMF within a day if they hold short positions of 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4% or 0.5% of a company’s shares.
The ban will remain on naked short selling. Firms affected are Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, AXA and others.