Treasury has released draft regulations in relation to the disclosure of short selling information under the Corporations Amendment (Short Selling) Act 2008.

The draft regulations require:

• transactional reporting: the reporting of covered short selling transactions to market operators. This information will be aggregated and publicly released by market operators on the following business day; and
• positional reporting: the reporting of short positions by short sellers to ASIC. This information will be aggregated by ASIC and released to the public four business days after the positions are taken. The reporting of short positions will commence on 1 April 2010.

Comments may be made until 23 October 2009. It is intended that the regulations will be considered by the Executive Council in November 2009.

The Government will review these regulatory arrangements 12 months after the commencement of the new positional reporting requirements.