In November 2006, Oslo Børs, VPS and VPS Clearing signed up to the agreement that established a European standard for clearing and settlement of trading in securities (the European Code of Conduct for Clearing and Settlement).
Oslo Børs, VPS and VPS Clearing are now extending their agreement to apply also to derivatives.
On 11 June 2007, extraordinary general meetings of Oslo Børs Holding ASA and VPS Holding ASA agreed to merge the companies to establish Oslo Børs VPS Holding ASA. The merger is conditional on approval by the authorities
The European Code of Conduct for Clearing and Settlement was prepared by the industry associations for infrastructure operators in the European securities market, namely the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA) and the European Association of Central Counterparty Clearing Houses (EACH). The Code of Conduct is available on the FESE website.
The European Code of Conduct will facilitate a more efficient market for trading in securities in Europe, and deals with three main issues:
- Publication in full by infrastructure operators of the fees they charge, including price examples.
- Rules on cross-border co-operation and on interoperability between infrastructure operators.
- Unbundling of services and accounting separation.
Oslo Børs, VPS and VPS Clearing are committed to adhering fully to the objectives and content of the Code of Conduct. Until now, this commitment has applied to clearing and settlement of trading in equities. In order to underline the merged company's intention to adhere to the Code of Conduct on a broad basis, this commitment is now extended to apply also to trading in derivatives.
Change in the requirements for registration with a securities registerIn addition, Oslo Børs has resolved to change the requirements in the Listing Rules in respect of securities registration for shares that are the subject of an application for admission to listing, cf. Section 2.4.7 of the Listing Rules. The change has the effect that companies can now be admitted to stock exchange listing regardless of which securities registry their shares are registered on, subject to the registry in question being authorised pursuant to the Securities Register Act. Prior to the change, shares had to be registered on VPS or another securities registry approved by Oslo Børs.