On 8th April 2020, Consob announced that it has admitted the new market Practice no. 1 relating to the support of market liquidity.

The new Practice no. 1 will come into force thirty days after its publication in the Official Bulletin of the Italian Republic (“Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana“), all along with the expiration of the previous Practice No 1, admitted with the Resolution (Consob) no. 16839 of 19 March 2009 .

The admission of the new Practice no. 1 follows the public consultation launched on 21 September 2018 about proposals for the adaptation to the new European context set by Regulation (EU) no. 596/2014 (MAR – Market Abuse Regulation) of the three market practices allowed by Consob in the previous EU regime.

The Contract shall establish maximum limits for the resources (Financial Instruments and/or cash) allocated to the performance of the activity, which shall be proportionate and commensurate to the purposes of the Contract both with regard to the positions opened on the buy or on the sell side and to the positions held when the activity started.

These limits shall be:

  1. for liquid financial instruments, no higher than 200% of the average daily trading volume on the Market during the 30 days prior to the start of activity and, in any event, no higher than € 20 million;
  2. for illiquid financial instruments, no higher than 1% of the outstanding issued Financial Instruments to be determined at the beginning of the day when the activity started or 500% of the average referred above and, in any event, no higher than € 1 million. The 1% limit is calculated at the beginning of the day when the activity starts and is updated when any significant change of the Financial Instruments issued occurs.