On 19 April 2016, the Dutch Minister of Finance published a legislative proposal implementing the Market Abuse Regulation (No 596/2014) (MAR) and the Directive on criminal sanctions for market abuse (2014/57/EU) (MAD II) in the Netherlands. The Act implementing the market abuse regulation and directive (Wet implementatie verordening en richtlijn marktmisbruik, the Implementation Act) will amend, amongst other things, the Act on the Financial Supervision (Wet op het financieel toezicht, AFS) and the Economic Offences Act (Wet op de economische delicten). The Implementation Act aims to update and harmonise the rules on (the prevention of) market abuse.

In addition to implementing the MAR and MAD II into Dutch legislation, the Implementation Act is also used as an opportunity to amend the administrative fine system as set out in the AFS. One the proposed amendments concerns the increase of the maximum administrative fine (for the most serious offences, e.g. performing regulated activities without the required authorisation) from EUR 4,000,000 to EUR 5,000,000 (which amount can be doubled to EUR 10,000,000 in case of repeated offences). Furthermore, the Implementation Act introduces the power for the Dutch regulators to (under certain circumstances) impose an administrative fine equal to (a maximum of) 10% of the offender’s net annual turnover. In cases where European rules and regulations require higher fines, the maximum fine may be increased to EUR 20,000,000 or 15% of the offender’s net annual turnover.

View the proposed Implementation Act (Dutch only), 19 April 2016.