1.In order to enable investors to assess at any time the terms of a transaction they are considering and to verify afterwards the conditions in which it has been carried out, each competent authority shall, for each of the regulated markets which it has entered on the list provided for in Article 16, take measures to provide investors with the information referred to in paragraph 2. In accordance with the requirements imposed in paragraph 2, the competent authorities shall determine the form in which and the precise time within which the information is to be provided, as well as the means by which it is to be made available, having regard to the nature, size and needs of the market concerned and of the investors operating on that market.
2.The competent authorities shall require for each instrument at least: (a) publication at the start of each day's trading on the market of the weighted average price, the highest and the lowest prices and the volume dealt in on the regulated market in question for the whole of the preceding day's trading; (b) in addition, for continuous order-driven and quote-driven markets, publication: - at the end of each hour's trading on the market, of the weighted average price and the volume dealt in on the regulated market in question for a six-hour trading period ending so as to leave two hours' trading on the market before publication, and - every 20 minutes, of the weighted average price and the highest and lowest prices on the regulated market in question for a two-hour trading period ending so as to leave one hour's trading on the market before publication. Where investors have prior access to information on the prices and quantities for which transactions may be undertaken: (i) such information shall be available at all times during market trading hours; (ii) the terms announced for a given price and quantity shall be terms on which it is possible for an investor to carry out such a transaction. The competent authorities may delay or suspend publication where that proves to be justified by exceptional market conditions or, in the case of small markets, to preserve the anonymity of firms and investors. The competent authorities may apply special provisions in the case of exceptional transactions that are very large in scale compared with average transactions in the security in question on that market and in the case of highly illiquid securities defined by means of objective criteria and made public. The competent authorities may also apply more flexible provisions, particularly as regards publication deadlines, for transactions concerning bonds and other forms of securitized debt.
3.In the field governed by this Article each Member State may adopt or maintain more stringent provisions or additional provisions with regard to the substance and form in which information must be made available to investors concerning transactions carried out on regulated markets of which it is the home Member State, provided that those provisions apply regardless of the Member State in which the issuer of the financial instrument is located or of the Member State on the regulated market of which the instrument was listed for the first time.
4.The Commission shall report on the application of this Article no later than 31 December 1997; the Council may, on a proposal from the Commission, decide by a qualified majority to amend this Article.