The Association of Brokers: «The BSE needs to ensure the unimpeded access of specialized journalists to its events»

The Association of Brokers has taken a stand against the exclusion of the BURSA newspaper from the guest list of the official events of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, reported on Friday.

In the opinion of the Association of Brokers, the BSE has to ensure the transparency of its activities through the unimpeded access of all journalists to specialized events.

The Association of Brokers thinks that any violation for any reasons or based on various criteria, of the access of specialized journalists to the events of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) concerning the admission to trading of new companies or other events of importance for the capital market can cause serious prejudice to the information of investors, the adequate promotion of the newly listed issuers and the attracting of new investors.

"In its issue of July 14th, 2017, the BURSA newspaper is accusing the management of the BSE of excluding it from the list of guests to official events, an accusation which the CEO of the BSE declined to comment, according to the video recordings posted on the website of the newspaper", the press release of the association states, which further states: "If the accusations made against the management of the BSE are proven true, we wonder if the market operator fully understands its role in promoting investments on the foreign capital market and in attracting new investors, that would contribute to increasing its liquidity, as the low level of liquidity is the main factor that is keeping the Romanian capital market among the frontier markets.

Furthermore, we are dealing with a violation of the right to information of the readers of BURSA, an aspect notified by the Romanian Journalists' Union MediaSind, according to the same article, as well as a favoring of the access to information for some of the specialized publications".

The representatives of the Association have also stated: "We feel that if it exists, this approach is not favorable to the image of the Bucharest Stock Exchange nor to the stock market in its entirety".

The Association of Brokers is presided by Dan Paul, who is also on the Board of Directors of the BSE.

Thus, through this press release, Dan Paul, member of the Board of the BSE, indirectly expresses his opposition to the exclusion of BURSA from the guest list of the BSE, to the reaction of CEO Ludwik Sobolewski, as well as to the silence of the board members in this case.

The BURSA newspaper informed the members of the board of directors about that situation in June, but we did not get an official response. That doesn't necessarily mean that all the board members of the BSE have ignored the aforementioned facts, because the only one who could have sent the position of the BSE on behalf of the board was president Lucian Anghel, according to the internal regulations of the Bucharest Stock Exchange.