On January 31, the Spanish securities regulator, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), announced that the prohibition on short sales of Spanish shares under the EU Short Selling Regulation (EU236/2012) would end with effect from February 1. This prohibition, imposed on November 1, 2012 for a period of three months (as reported in the November 2, 2012, edition of Corporate and Financial Weekly Digest), continued a ban originally introduced by the CNMV on July 23, 2012.

The European Securities and Markets Authority announced on January 29 that the three-month prohibition on short sales of Greek shares, which was also imposed on November 1, 2012 (continuing an earlier ban introduced under Greek law), would continue in effect for a further three months until April 30, 2013.

The ESMA opinion regarding Spain is available here.

The ESMA opinion regarding Greece is available here.