BURSA has filed a preliminary complaint against the Financial Oversight Authority (ASF)

BURSA has submitted a preliminary complaint against the Financial Oversight Authority (ASF), because it is dragging its feet in answering the request for information included in an Open Letter, which was published in the September 2 issue (vezi "Scrisoare deschisă adresată domnului Nicu Marcu, preşedintele ASF"/ BURSA / 02 septembrie), but, to the surprise of the Communication Department of the ASF, it has also submitted with the Registry of the ASF, as an official request.

The surprise is mutual, because today, due to our intention of being open, we have informed the head of the Communication Department that we will be making a preliminary complaint and, unexpectedly, we found out that he did not know about the official registration of our request.

Apparently the open letter was treated by the ASF as just a journalistic article which does not necessitate a response, despite the explicit commitment of the management of the ASF, in the presence of dozens of witnesses, that it will respond to the questions addressed by BURSA and that it will respond to each and every question (see "Preşedintele ASF Nicu Marcu s-a întâlnit (informal) cu un număr de ziarişti"/ BURSA / September 03).

The failure to honor those promises leads to doubt concerning the honor of the management of the ASF, an institution which stigmatized as a "cesspool" of corruption anyway, and that is why, the only hope of restoring normalcy came from the newly appointed chairman ASF Nicu Marcu and from the people which he appointed to replace the previous ASF staff, including the new head of Communication at the ASF, former journalist Daniel Apostol.

Exactly two months ago, BURSA asked the market institutions to take a stance against the manipulation against SIF Banat Crişana, asking two questions (see "Răspunsuri ale instituţiilor pieţei la solicitarea BURSA să ia poziţie faţă de manipularea de la SIF Banat Crişana"/ BURSA /August 12):

"1. In your opinion, who bears the responsibility for the fact that the NAV of SIF Banat-Crişana was reported as one billion lei above the fair value, in two successive months?

2. What is the stance of your institution on the manipulation that BURSA is talking about, and what reverberations does it have across the entire stock market?"

The response at the time was once again a promise:

"Given your request, we inform you that the Financial Oversight Authority has initiated an investigation to clarify every aspect referring to this situation. The conclusions will be drawn after the conclusion of this action, to the extent where it will be doable to make that information public".

In reality, the case does not necessitate any kind of investigation, as shown in the article "ASF nu ia nicio măsură să oprească manipularea; cifrele manipulate de SIF Banat Crişana continuă să fie afişate public de BVB şi AAF" /BURSA/ August 14:

"Nobody knows what the investigation which the ASF says it has begun in the case of manipulation at SIF Banat Crişana consists of, how long it is going to take, what it seeks to achieve, by what means and if the ASF is going to share its findings with the public as well, in order for these pariahs of our society, the silly investors, know what happens to their money.

It's as if the ASF were investigating the arithmetic".

The investigation ends when you finish reading the article "SIF Imobiliare - un caz care ilustrează dezmembrarea pieţei noastre de capital"/ BURSA /July 30 and once you check whether what the article says is true: that SIF Banat Crişana has inflated the NAV it reported publicly by over 1 billion lei.

What we have published on August 14 is just as valid two months later, today, October 13, with the only difference being that two months have passed and it is to be expected that the investigation has either been put on hold, or it is ongoing, or that its findings cannot be made public for some mysterious reason and in that regard we are free to speculate.

Even though president Nicu Marcu has expressed his openness for a fair relationship with the press, so far he has not upheld his end of the bargain, in order to ensure the correct information of the public.

It is the reason why we have brought the preliminary complaint, on the road towards a lawsuit.

All we want is for the stock market to recover its ability to attract confidence, by restoring the moral and professional integrity of the ASF and its people.

One first step on that path is in the responses to the Open Letter of BURSA, which are all being awaited with the highest interest by investors.