Source: Pregled
Sabic: Infringement of transparency of the ownership structure of companies
Belgrade
Commissioner for Information of Public Importance of Serbia, Rodoljub Sabic, has pointed out that the proposed changes of the Law on Securities' Market do not secure transparency of the ownership structure of joint stock companies.Sabic quoted in the blog at anti-corruption portal of Beta Agency, Beta_portalargus.org that Article 36 of the Draft Law on Amendments of the Law on Securities' Market envisaged that the Central Register shall publish at its web page a list of ten shareholders with the biggest number of shares of a certain joint stock company. That provision changes Article 211 paragraph 6 of the valid Law on Securities' Market, precisely defining that the data from unique records of shareholders kept by the issuing authority are public data and shall be published at web page of the Central Register, according to the method prescribed by the Central Register enactments , pointed out Sabic.
If the suggested solution would be adopted, that would, according to his evaluation, be one undesired step backwards in relation to the valid legal regulations pertaining to transparency of data on company ownership structure.
Such legal provision would, as Sabic points out, without convincing arguments restrict the scope of data published on the Central Register's web page. Because the right to freely access information is a right also guaranteed by Constitution, obvious restriction of transparency of work of one very important mechanism for a modern society, as is the Central Register for Securities, should be evaluated also in the light of Constitutional provisions, that the achieved level of human rights must not be decreased , stated `abi.
