OREANDA-NEWS. May 04, 2016. The Bank of Russia has announced changes in rules of information disclosure for entities exercising rights to depository receipts. The new rules significantly facilitate the disclosure process.

A legal entity exercising rights to depository receipts that provided information on its name may be identified unambiguously by its Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).

This identifier has been introduced to facilitate the procedure of collecting the information required for conducting Russian issuers’ general shareholder meetings, and to unify the formats of data exchange between market participants. It is expected that the changes in the information disclosure procedure will encourage DR holders to take a more active part in corporate actions related to Russian issuers’ securities.

About LEI

Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) is a unique global code assigned to a legal entity in accordance with the ISO 17442 international standard; it is used to make transactions and to carry out reporting procedures in financial markets.

National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s central securities depository, functions as a pre-Local Operation Unit (pre-LOU) assigning LEIs. NSD is a globally endorsed pre-LOU; all LEIs assigned by NSD shall be accepted by regulators, market participants and pre-LOUs of other countries.

In 2015, NSD assigned 511 LEIs and received eight LEIs from foreign pre-LOUs.

Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC) is an international supervisory organization regulating and controlling Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation’s (GLEIF) functioning. The Committee has been created by the Financial Stability Board.

More information about NSD’s activities as pre-LOU and on the procedure of LEI assignment is available at lei-code.ru/en.