Under Listing Rule 3.1, the information in an announcement is considered market sensitive if "a reasonable person would expect the information to have a material effect on the price or value of the entity's securities". Section 677 of the Corporations Act provides further that this test is deemed to be met "if the information would, or would be likely to, influence persons who commonly invest in securities in deciding whether to acquire or dispose of the securities".
ASX has advised that some announcements will automatically default to "market sensitive" and this cannot be altered by the listed entity. These include specific announcements in relation to takeovers, periodic reports such as half yearly and full year reports and mining/exploration quarterly reports.
As a result it would seem that almost all ASX announcements (apart from those more general procedural announcement, such as appointment of a new Company Secretary) will be marked as "market sensitive".
The changes should not cause too much concern for listed entities. While listed entities are now responsible for identifying announcements as "market sensitive", the ASX will still have the ultimate responsibility of classifying the announcements.
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