Shareholders and members with qualifying holdings

1.  The supervisory authorities of the home Member State shall not grant to an undertaking an authorisation to take up the business of insurance or reinsurance before they have been informed of the identities of the shareholders or members, direct or indirect, whether natural or legal persons, who have qualifying holdings in that undertaking and of the amounts of those holdings.

Those authorities shall refuse authorisation if, taking into account the need to ensure the sound and prudent management of an insurance or reinsurance undertaking, they are not satisfied as to the qualifications of the shareholders or members.

2.  For the purposes of paragraph 1, the voting rights referred to in Articles 9 and 10 of Directive 2004/109/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 2004 on the harmonisation of transparency requirements in relation to information about issues whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market ( 5 ), as well as the conditions regarding aggregation thereof laid down in Article 12(4) and (5) of that Directive, shall be taken into account.

Member States shall not take into account voting rights or shares which investment firms or credit institutions may hold as a result of providing the underwriting of financial instruments and/or placing of financial instruments on a firm commitment basis included under point (6) of Section A of Annex I to Directive 2004/39/EC, provided that those rights are, on the one hand, not exercised or otherwise used to intervene in the management of the issuer and, on the other, disposed of within one year of the acquisition.