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Registrars Against Central Depository Monopoly

14.10.2011 15:25 / Interfax

The Board of Directors of the Professional Association of Registrars, Transfer Agents and Depositories (PARTAD) states that the decision to give the Central Depository an exclusive right to open nominee accounts in registrars is “unfounded”, informed the Chairman of the PARTAD Board of Directors and the Head of the Duma Property Committee Victor Pleskachevsky at a Wednesday press-conference.

The Central Depository Bill was approved at meeting chaired by Alexey Kudrin on October 7. A decision was made to offer the Central Depository an exclusive right to open nominee accounts in registrars for listed shares. It is assumed that the bill will be passed by the State Duma on October 21.

According to Victor Pleskachevsky, the approved variant of the Central Depository Bill meets the interests of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and other banks - the shareholders of the MICEX Group and its National Settlement Depository, which is uniquely poised to play the Central Depository role in Russia.

Petr Lanskov, Deputy COB at PARTAD, says if this variant of the bill is passed, the Central Depository will accumulate high settlement risks for exchange and OTC trades by licensed participants, thus decreases the stability of settlement.

"The may be a bottleneck when the Central Depository has to make disclosures on all issuers at once, especially during the GSM period", said Igor Polyakov, COB at New Registrar.

Petr Lanskov said PARTAD proposes an exclusive right for the Central Depository to open nominee accounts in registrars only of for exchange trade settlement, keeping the current system of registrars for the OTC market; in particular, depositories, among them settlement depositories, can open nominee accounts at the registrar.

Head of MICEX Ruben Aganbegyan told Interfax that the introduction of the Central Depository Act affects the interests of different market participants: Russian depositories, registrars, issuers, global custodians and investors, infrastructural organizations.

According to him, the Bill was drafted with all the interested parties sharing opinions, and turned out to be a real compromise in the the interests of the majority of market participants, keeping things comfortable for everyone.

"The State structures, which are greatly interested in the Russian market development, were called upon to judge certain turning points. Their decisions are balanced and long-sighted", said Ruben Aganbegyan.

Head of MICEX also said that the exclusive rights for the Central Depository are based on global practice, analyzed by international experts before and during the drafting of the bill. "The exclusiveness allows to ease and speed up disclosure and technologically provide the issuer a quality service on a daily basis, not just once a year pre-GSM. Any other variant makes it impossible", Ruben Aganbegyan said.

The Central Depository has been discussed for over ten years. This institution is necessary in order to increase foreign investment flow into Russia. According to Rule 17f-7 of the Investment Companies Act of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), funds can directly invest in the securities of other country only if there is a Central Depository in place which meets certain requirements.

Trading infrastructureProject Group №1Ruben AganbegyanAlexei KudrinPetr Lanskov