Before deciding on operations involving share issuance or sale, companies or shareholders may seek to disclose information to selected investors, in order to gauge their opinion on the envisaged market operation. Despite such “market soundings” risk violating the prohibition of insider trading, selective disclosures have been partially accepted in several European jurisdictions. Market soundings have been eventually regulated in the MAR, which clarifies under which circumstances they are allowed and the position of the involved parties. This article analyses the rules on market soundings in the MAR with regard to issuance in the secondary market and accelerated bookbuildings. In this context, the question arises of whether harmonised rules on market soundings are compatible with national company law regimes. To address this issue, it will be assessed how Italian and English company law regimes react towards selective disclosures. It will be shown that a tension may still exist between uniform rules on market abuses and national company law rules, mostly with regard to directors’ duties and liabilities.

中文翻译：

---

市场声音：英国和意大利的证券法规与公司法之间的相互作用

在决定涉及股票发行或出售的业务之前，公司或股东可能会寻求向选定的投资者披露信息，以评估他们对所设想的市场运作的看法。尽管这种“市场听起来”有违反内幕交易禁止的风险，但选择性披露已在欧洲一些司法管辖区得到部分接受。MAR中最终对市场声音进行了规范，明确了在何种情况下允许市场声音以及相关各方的立场。本文分析了MAR中关于二级市场发行和加速建账的市场影响力规则。在这种情况下，出现了一个问题，即关于市场影响的统一规则是否符合国家公司法制度。为了解决这个问题，我们将评估意大利和英国公司法制度对选择性披露的反应。可以看出，关于市场滥用的统一规则与国家公司法规则之间仍然存在紧张关系，主要是关于董事的职责和责任。