Should know in 10 mins
1. 'Pause in trading�
ASX introduced two additional functionalities to ASX Online that went live on 6 August 2018. These allow a listed entity to provide an indication as to whether an announcement lodged for release to the market:
- is �market sensitive� or �non-sensitive�;
- materially relates to or affects another listed entity and therefore should be cross-released against the name of that entity on the Market Announcements Platform.
More detail about these new functionalities was provided inASX Compliance Update 06/18.
Coinciding with the above introduction, ASX�s Trading Operations made changes to its process for implementing a �pause in trading� in a listed entity�s securities in order to provide greater transparency to investors. This involves ASX publishing to the market an ASX �Pause in Trading� market release to the following effect:
Trading in the securities of the entity will be temporarily paused pending a further announcement.
As a result, ASX has received a greater level of enquiry about the pause in trading process and, in particular, queries regarding when and how ASX applies a pause in trading.
ASX generally pauses trading when a listed entity:
- tells ASX it is intending to lodge a market sensitive announcement and ASX is concerned the market does not trade on an uninformed basis ahead of that announcement; or
- requests a trading halt and ASX agrees to the request, to prevent trading occurring on an uninformed basis while the trading halt is processed.
ASX itself may also initiate a pause in trading if it is unable to contact a listed entity to discuss a query about its disclosure obligations and has reason to be concerned that trading may be about to occur, or is already occurring, on an uninformed basis.
These processes have not changed as a result of the new functionality introduced to ASX Online. All that has changed is that ASX is now publishing a notice to the market when it imposes a pause in trading to notify the market of that fact and to expect a further announcement in due course explaining the reason for the pause.
As well as pauses in trading initiated by ASX as described above, there are also pauses in trading whenever ASX releases an announcement by a listed entity classified as �market sensitive�. The pause lasts for a period of approximately 10 minutes, unless the announcement relates to a takeover or scheme, in which case the pause lasts for approximately 60 minutes, after the release of the announcement. These types of pauses in trading are automatically applied to allow the market time to absorb the information in the announcement and do not result in an ASX �Pause in Trading� market release.
