The Constitutional Court has postponed the hearing of the holding cap for the SIFs

• The new hearing has been set for June 16th

The Constitutional Court yesterday postponed the hearing of the constitutionality of the maximum holding limit of 1% of the shares of the SIFs until June 16th, Mihai Fercală, the chairman of SIF Transilvania said. "It is nevertheless a short delay", he added.

"I am not contesting the cap, because the Companies Law no. 31 does contain an article that states that the shareholders of a company can set any holding cap for it. What I am disputing is the manner in which the government intervened in the life of a company and set this limit", Fercală said.

The unconstitutional exception clause was invoked last year by SIF Transilvania in a lawsuit with the CNVM, which is on the docket at the Court of Appeal Bucharest. The lawsuit was brought by SIF Transilvania because the Romanian National Securities Commission did not validate the amendment of the status of the FICs by raising the maximum holding threshold for from 1% to 5% of the shares, expansion which was decided by shareholders in 2009.

In case the Constitutional Court decides that the threshold is unconstitutional, the maximum allowed holding limit at SIF Transilvania will increase to 5%, according to the decision of its shareholders of 2009, whereas it will remain at 1% for the other FICs as long as shareholders do not set a different holding limits. Fercală added: "Those who bought between the old limit of 0.1%, and the current limit of 1%, won"t be required to sell and to lower their holdings to 0.1%, if it is decided that the limit is unconstitutional. They bought their shares based on the provisions of the law and as such may not be required to sell. Still, those who will buy for the first time after an eventual decision of unconstitutionality will be forced to comply with the old limit of 0.1%".