no 91/07 Amendment to the rulebooks for trading and clearing on Nord Pool's financial markets

Lysaker, 21 December 2007

As a result of the implementation of MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) in Norwegian legislation Nord Pool has found it necessary to update the rulebooks for trading and clearing on Nord Pool's financial markets, including the rulebooks on financial electricity contracts and certificate contracts, allowances and fish (clearing).

The updates include updated references to the relevant new Norwegian legislation (Act on Regulated Markets of 29 June 2007 No 74 and Act on Securities Trading of 29 June 2007 No 75). In addition minor corrections have been made to clarify the content of a number of rules, such as specifying in the trading rules that also telephone conversations with the market surveillance department are being taped. 

The changes also include updates of the product specification (appendix 1 to the trading rules, appendix 2 to the clearing rules) as a result of launching German and Dutch power contracts as announced in exchange information no 77 2007.

In addition some new adjustments have been made in the market conduct rules:
 - Market conduct rules section 2.4 regarding reporting of non-exchange transactions in Listed Products. The change implies that the time limit for reporting of transactions is always a minimum of 15 minutes, also for transactions closed outside trading hours.

 - Market conduct rules section 8.1 (new) regarding duty to provide information to the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway. This is an implementation of the information duty set out in the Securities Trading Act section 3-11.

 - Market conduct rules section 9.1.3 regarding maximum violation charge. This change is due to changes in the provisions regulating the maximum violation charge in the new exchange regulations (exchange regulation section 33). These rules are as of 1 November 2007 applicable to Nord Pool's financial markets and state that the maximum violation charge is NOK 2 500 000. 

 - Market conduct rules enclosure 1 section 2.2.3 regarding reporting of outages and failures during night time, implying that the time limit for disclosing relevant information is 60 minutes also between 20.00 and 07.00. This is a harmonisation with the disclosure rules applicable for Nord Pool Spot AS' physical markets as of 9 October 2007.

 - Market conduct rules enclosure 1 section 2.2.4, 2.2.5, 2.3 and 2.4 are new, and are included to harmonize the rules on disclosure and inside information with the existing similar rules for Nord Pool Spot AS' physical markets. The wording in section 2.2.1, 2.2.2 and 2.2.3 has also been altered slightly for the same reasons.
The changes will take effect from 11 January 2008.

The new regulations are displayed on the Nord Pool website (http://www.nordpool.com www.nordpool.com ) as of today.
For further information, please contact Nord Pool ASA: 

Eeva Kantanen, lawyer, phone: +47 6752 8034 

Lars Galtung, vice president communications, phone +47 9821 4812