The EU Short Selling Regulation (SSR) introduced a private and public notification regime for investors who hold net short positions in certain financial instruments. We explain notifications and disclosures.
On this page 
End of the transition period
The EU SSR and the Level 2 regulation (regulation EU 918/2012) were converted into domestic law as amended by the Short Selling (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 following the end of the transition period.
The Binding Technical Standards, adopted under the EU SSR as at the end of the transition period, have also been converted into UK law and apply as amended by the Technical Standards (Short Selling) (EU Exit) Instrument 2019.
ESMA Guidelines adopted under the SSR have not been incorporated into UK law.
ESMA Guidelines and Q&A documents adopted under the SSR, should be treated in accordance with our general approach to EU non-legislative materials. Generally, firms should continue to follow and have regard to such materials to the extent that they are relevant under UK SSR.
We published our Primary Market Bulletin 21, 24 and 32 in which we advise market makers of changes to the regulatory obligations under UK SSR. PMB 21 and 32 are particularly important for firms using the market maker exemption under the SSR, as they explain the key conditions for the exemption and equivalence of EEA regimes.
Under the UK SSR, you may have to notify us of positions that are private or are to be disclosed publicly.
See the public short positions disclosed to us - daily update (XLSX).
3 April 2023 update
Revised List of Exempted Shares valid from 1 April 2023 is now available
In our 28 December 2022 update, we explained our current procedure to undertake the biannual review of the list of exempted shares (LES) as required under Article 16 of the UK SSR. A first review of shares admitted to trading on UK trading venues as of 31 October 2022 was undertaken last year and the resulting updated LES valid from 1 January 2023 was published.
We have now undertaken a second review to include shares admitted to trading on UK trading venues in November and December 2022, as a result, a revised LES is available from 1 April 2023 and applies to positions reached from that date.
We provide an update on this work, below. You should read our updated sections and familiarise yourself with the changes introduced.
Short Selling Regulation Review – Call for Evidence
The Treasury’s Short Selling Regulation Review: Call for Evidence has now closed. This Call for Evidence was part of the government's wider programme to repeal and replace retained EU law in financial services. The government will publish a response in due course.
Register to submit a notification
To be able to submit a short selling notification to us on behalf of a position holder (whether a firm or an individual), the person making the notification (the reporting person) must be registered with us through our Electronic Submission System (ESS).
If you are making notifications for yourself as an individual reporting person, you will still need to be registered as a reporting person beforehand.
You will not be able to send any notifications until we have accepted your registration.
Firstly, you will need to create a personal ESS account before you are able to submit a SSR registration form.
Once your account has been approved, you will need to submit one of the following Position Holder registration types:
- Registration for New Position Holder Firm – This registration type is to register yourself as a reporting person for a firm that has not been registered before.
- Registration for Existing Position Holder – This registration type is to register yourself as a reporting person for a firm/individual that is already registered
- Registration for New Position Holder Individual – This registration type is to register yourself as a position holder individual or for an individual that has not been registered before.
For all the above registration types, you will need to upload an authorisation letter on the ESS portal. The authorisation letter should be on company letter head and should state which individuals have permission to submit notifications on behalf of the firm/individual. This should be signed by an individual that has the authority to give this level of permission.
For registering of New Position Holder Firm, a certificate of incorporation of the firm will be required.
For registering a New Individual Position Holder, you must provide a copy of the position holder’s driving license or passport.
Once we have accepted your registration we will send you an acceptance email in addition to being given permission to the SSR notification submissions on ESS.
If there is more than one reporting person for a position holder, each reporting person must complete the registration process.
This is detailed in section 5 of our ESS user guide.
UK sovereign debt thresholds
For thresholds regarding UK sovereign debt and uncovered positions in UK sovereign CDS, please see the below table which is updated on a quarterly basis.
NOTIFICATION THRESHOLDS FOR NET SHORT POSITIONS ON UK SOVEREIGN DEBT
QUARTERLY UPDATE
Valid as of 15 April 2023
| Sovereign issuer |
Amount of outstanding UK debt (in million €) - Duration adjusted | Initial threshold in % In million € |
Incremental level in % In million € |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 27,468,520.45 | 0.50% | 137,342.60 | 0.25% |
68,671.30 |
How to make a notification
You must send your notification to us through our Electronic Submission System, following registration of reporting persons and position holders.
You should send your positions by 3.30pm on the trading day after the day the position was reached. All calculations should be made as at midnight on the trading day the position was reached.
Correct or delete an incorrect notification
When you submit a net short position notification, you will see a position ID in your ESS portal. There is a unique ID for every position submitted to us.
If you need to correct or delete a notification, you must submit a Net Short Position Share Notification – Correct and reference the position ID of the notification that you wish to correct.
If the position is completely incorrect and you wish to delete it you will need to submit a Net Short Position Share Notification – Delete and reference the position ID of the notification you wish to delete.
Do not use the notifications provided for correcting or deleting a notification to report a movement of a position, or the closing out of a position. These notification types should only be used when you have given us incorrect information in a notification.
Please, follow the above steps if you wish to correct or delete a previous notification sent to us in UK sovereign debt or in uncovered UK sovereign CDS.
Notes for using the forms on ESS
You must provide all the mandatory information (highlighted by a red asterix) to complete the forms on ESS.
The ISIN code of the stock must be provided in the correct format (12 alphanumeric characters) and a percentage position must always be completed to 2 decimal places.
No ISIN code is require for reporting net short positions in UK sovereign debt and in uncovered UK sovereign CDS.