On 13 July 2022, the European Commission published a Delegated Regulation supplementing the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) with regard to regulatory technical standards (RTS) setting out a contractual template for liquidity contracts for the shares of issuers whose financial instruments are admitted to trading on an SME growth market together with an annex.

The RTS sets out the requirements that parties to a liquidity contract should comply with in order to make sure that such persons are not engaging in market manipulation. In particular, the Annex to the RTS contains a contractual template which sets out the requirements relevant to comply with the criteria established in Article 13(2) of MAR with which the parties to a  liquidity contract concerning shares of an issuer listed on an SME Growth Market should comply in order to be covered by the safe harbour pursuant to article 13 MAR.

The Delegated Regulation enters into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.