What is MAR Article 19?
The EU law that makes insider trades public. 4-minute plain-English explainer.
MAR stands for the Market Abuse Regulation — formally EU Regulation 596/2014. It came into force on 3 July 2016 and applies to every publicly listed company in the European Economic Area (EU-27 plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein).
Article 19 is the piece that matters to retail investors. It says: every person discharging managerial responsibilities (a PDMR) at a listed company, plus people closely associated with them, must report any personal transaction in shares or debt instruments of that company to both the issuer and the national regulator — within three business days.
Who counts as a PDMR? Directors, C-suite executives (CEO, CFO, COO, etc.), senior officers with regular access to inside information. Plus their spouses, dependent children, and companies/trusts they control — that's the "closely associated" part.
What has to be reported? Any direct or indirect transaction in the issuer's shares, debt, or linked derivatives (options, warrants, CFDs). Subscription to a rights issue, inheritance, gifts in specie — all in scope.
What's exempt? Transactions below a €5,000 aggregate-per-year floor (bumped to €20,000 by most national regulators) don't need to be reported.
Where does the data go? Each EU country has a "national competent authority" that runs the register. In Germany it's BaFin. Sweden, Finansinspektionen. France, AMF. UK (post-Brexit, still mirrors MAR), the FCA. Each publishes the notifications in their own portal, often in the local language.
Why it matters to you: these filings are signals. Insiders have an informational advantage and they're voluntarily putting personal money on the line. Their buying has historically outperformed the market by several percentage points per year. InsideREU aggregates every filing across every EU regulator so you don't have to hunt through 30+ websites.