OREANDA-NEWS. On 24th March 2016, the Independent Registrar Company (IRC) carried out a conference “Public and Non-public Joint Stock Companies’ Corporate Practice: Legal Form Matters.” Among the participants of the discussion were heads of corporations, representatives of Russian issuers, corporate sector experts, lawyers and specialists in investor and shareholder relations.

The main topics discussed at the forum involved the corporate governance code, corporate actions, new conditions of interactions with shareholders and nominees, innovations in the securities market law and possible ways to reduce corporate governance costs.

Sergey Bernevega, Managing Director for Corporate Actions, National Settlement Depository (NSD), presented his report at the panel discussion “Corporate actions and new conditions of public and non-public joint stock companies’ interactions with shareholders and nominees.” The panel discussion was moderated by Vadim Protasenko, CEO of IRC. Dmitriy Zaliznyak (J.P. Morgan), Nikolai Illarionov (LUKOIL) and Zoya Soldatova (Deutsche Bank) also spoke at the event. Among the participants of the discussion were representatives of BNY Mellon and major joint stock companies. It was a lively debate as the panel discussion brought together all parties interested in the corporate actions reform. All participants had an opportunity to express their opinions regarding the reform, to know their colleagues’ views and to share their expectations of working in new conditions.

We would like to remind that on 1 July 2016, the new provisions of Federal Laws “On Joint Stock Companies” and "On the Securities Market” will come into effect as part of corporate actions reform. In accordance with these changes, shareholders with securities accounted in the depository system will be able to exercise their rights associated with corporate actions only through their depository. To let market participants prepare for the coming changes, NSD, Russia’s central securities depository, together with its clients conducts regular tests of its EDI and telecommunications channels. These activities will allow to identify and fix technical errors and guarantee the reliability of corporate action processing in the future.