FFMS favors changing legislation to include final beneficiary disclosure
MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS) intends to initiate changes to the legislation regarding the disclosure of Russian companies' final beneficiaries, head of the FFMS Dmitry Pankin said at a congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE).
The FFMS has already made the first step in this direction, he said. Under the law 'On the central depositary' adopted last year, an owner of a depositary receipt can vote at a shareholders meeting only if he discloses information about himself. Such a restriction also applies to dividend payouts.
"I consider it necessary to proceed even further down this path and introduce changes to the legislation in which the right to vote is provided for only if the beneficiary is disclosed," Pankin said.
Executing such an approach "is not so easy," although it is necessary to fulfill the obligations "that we have taken on in the framework of the G20 and the Financial Stability Forum," he said.
Russia is also adopting a law on insider dealing and manipulating, which "will change the procedure for working on the market," he said. The standards of the law envisage criminal responsibility for violations. Pankin also pointed to the importance of changes introduced in information disclosure. "In the future, we will continue work in this direction," he said.
These legislative advances will lead to "it becoming more and more complicated to carry out activities" in business due to the growing amount of required reporting and regulation, Pankin said. Therefore, the FFMS intends to adopt measures to simplify issue procedures, particularly regarding the registration of such documents as issue prospectuses. "Right now we are holding discussions with the professional community and preparing a solution. We can't cancel all registrations at once; there's still a lot of garbage on the market and questionable securities," he said.