NOT THE CNVM, NOR THE MINISTRY OF FINANCES Senators take on the "Rasdaq"

A draft law for the dismantling of the "Rasdaq", a market which is not considered regulated within he meaning of the European directives, has been submitted to the Senate by a group of 28 members of the Parliament, led by PSD MP Marius Bota, at the end of February.

The entire stock market is anxiously waiting to see how the matter of the Rasdaq, after a draft submitted by the Romanian National Securities Commission caused a huge disagreement between the Bucharest Stock Exchange and the Association of Stock Market Investors. In order to get out of trouble, the Commission asked the Ministry of Finance to initiate a draft law for the "Rasdaq", but so far, it seemed the Ministry wasn't in any hurry to get started.

Before anyone had the time to find out more about the draft law proposed by the senators, its initiator withdrew it, on March 4th, because it had errors.

Senator Marius Bota said: "For two years now we have been working on this draft law intended to < regulate >, not disband, the Rasdaq, because according to the European directives it is not a regulated market.

We want to offer the possibility to companies listed on the Rasdaq to get delisted, because many of them don't even meet the requirements for being listed anymore".

He also explained why he has withdrawn the draft: "As soon as it showed up on the website of the Senate, we have noticed that there were some inconsistencies, there was room for some confusion, so we took it back to correct the mistakes.

We are working on a final version and we will submit it this week or the next".

The senator also told us that last year, he decided to draw up the draft law, because no one wanted to take responsibility, at the CNVM, or at the Ministry of Finance.

According to the draft published by the Senate, the new law would implement regulations applicable to companies traded on the Ras-daq market, in order to have them admitted for trading on a regulated market or to have their stocks be traded on an alternative trading system authorized by the CNVM.

According to the draft project in question, the BSE would have to identify the companies listed on the Rasdaq which qualify for the regulated market. The latter would have to summon their shareholders to decide on the transfer. The companies listed on the Rasdaq also have the option to be traded on an alternative trading system approved by the CNVM. Under certain circumstances, the companies are also supposed to give shareholders the right to withdraw, subject to conditions, according to the draft law.

The argumentation for this law states that the importance of the draft law is also proven by the warning of the Ministry of European Affairs about the lack of a clear and to the point answer to the requests of the European Commission and to its warnings that it will start an action to acknowledge the fact that Romania's hasn't honored its obligations as a member to comply with the applicable European regulations.

20 out of the 28 MPs who signed the draft law are members of the PSD.