Government to accelerate the removal of quarterly reporting requirements

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06 Dec, 2013

The government has indicated in its Autumn Statement that it will move to accelerate the removal of mandatory quarterly reporting requirements for UK companies.

In November the government expressed their support for the removal of mandatory quarterly reporting requirements which were one of the recommendations of Professor Kay in his review of the UK Equity market in 2012 (the “Kay Review”) (link to BIS website).  The Kay Review sought to address the issue of short-termism in the equity market.   

The removal of mandatory quarterly reporting has been agreed at a European Union level as part of the amendments to the Transparency Directive and must be transposed into UK law by November 2015. 

However, as part of the Autumn Statement, the government has announced its intention to bring forward this change.  They comment: 

The government will introduce an element of the Transparency Directive in advance of the November 2015 deadline for implementation, to remove the requirement for listed companies to publish quarterly reports. The government plans to bring forward enabling secondary legislation early in 2014, allowing the Financial Conduct Authority to implement this change following public consultation. 

Click for full text of the Autumn Statement and related documents on the HM Treasury website.

Update 02/06/2014:

The UK Government has adopted the enabling secondary legislation (link to legislation.gov.uk website).  The Financial Conduct Authority will now need to consult on changes to its Disclosure and Transparency Rules to give effect to this amendment to remove mandatory quarterly reporting.

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