The JSE has said that the amendments to the JSE Debt Listings Requirements (DLR) were done to align them with the provisions of the Financial Markets Act, 2012 (FMA). The amendments largely serve to replace the references to the Securities Services Act with the FMA and to provide for the listing, trading, clearing and settlement of debt securities in a transparent, efficient and orderly market place.

The amendments largely serve to replace the references to the Securities Services Act with the FMA.

The changes to the language (for example, in several places throughout the DLR, “terminate” has been changed to “removal”) are purely for alignment with the FMA and no additional or other interpretation should be inferred from such amendments according to the JSE. In other instances, where the previous version of the DLR still referred to the Bond Exchange of South Africa and other dated references, these have been amended and updated to reflect the current position.

A word of caution to applicant issuers: more onerous penalties will be imposed on those issuers who contravene the DLR. Pleasingly, the amendments have also introduced a more transparent consultation process with the JSE by inviting public comment from all relevant stakeholders to any future amendments to the DLR which will be submitted to the Registrar of Securities Services for approval.