Question a: Articles 17 and 18 of the TD require issuers to ensure that all the facilities and information necessary to enable shareholders / debt securities holders to exercise their rights are available in the home Member State. Each issuer is also required to designate as its agent a financial institution through which shareholders / debt securities holders may exercise their financial rights.
Must the issuer appoint as its agent a financial institution domiciled in the home Member State? Or is it sufficient to appoint a financial institution domiciled in another Member State?

Question b: Before the TD was adopted, similar provisions were included in Articles 65(2)(c) and 78(2)(b) of the Directive 2001/34/EC. However, there was an exemption for issuers providing financial services: “In particular, it [the issuer] must: (...) designate as its agent a financial institution through which holders of debt securities may exercise their financial rights, unless the under-taking itself provides financial services.”
Does the TD require issuers who are financial institutions to appoint as an agent a financial institution other than itself?

Company A is a major shareholder in an issuer X whose shares are admitted to trading on a regulated market. Company B, which previously does not hold any shares or voting rights in X, ac-quires control in company A. Should B notify its holdings in issuer X even though the holdings of A in issuer X remain the same?

Shall the owners of a joint investors account (an account for two persons that are considered co-owners of the securities contained in the joint account), in order to calculate their thresholds, aggregate the proportion of voting rights attached to their personal accounts to the proportion of voting rights attached to the shares of the joint account? How do these persons notify their participation to the joint account?

Pursuant to Article 9(1) of the TD “[t]he voting rights shall be calculated on the basis of all the shares to which voting rights are attached even if the exercise thereof is suspended. Moreover this information shall also be given in respect of all the shares which are in the same class and to which voting rights are attached.”

Is the provision concerning “class by class disclosure” an autonomous obligation? In other words, must a notification be made when the person reaches, exceeds or falls below the relevant thresh-olds in terms of a single class of shares (e.g. ordinary shares) calculated on the basis of all shares of that class issued, or it is only an additional disclosure requirement which arises only in the case in which an obligation of notification is met in terms of all the shares with voting rights held calculated on the basis of all the voting shares issued?