[ESMA32-51-370 APM Q17]

In accordance with paragraph 8, the APM Guidelines are based on the principle stated in Articles 4 and 5 of the Transparency Directive of providing a fair review of the development and performance of the business and the position of the issuer. In addition, the overall objective of the APM Guidelines, as prescribed in paragraph 6 of the Guidelines, is to contribute to transparent and useful information to the market and improve comparability, reliability and/or comprehensibility of APMs used.

Depending on facts and circumstances, presenting biased APMs which are adjusted to exclude only one-off losses but including, where applicable, one-off gains of the same nature and occurring during the same period may violate the principles set out in articles 4 and 5 of the Transparency Directive and be contrary to the overall objective of the APM Guidelines. Depending on facts and circumstances, this may be true irrespective of whether these APMs are correctly labelled as the fair labelling may not compensate for the fact that the APMs provided an unfair review of the development and performance of the business and the position of the issuer. Therefore, depending on facts and circumstances, a biased measure of performance may not be compliant with the APM Guidelines.