Thunder and lightning struck the capital market watchdog, the Romanian National Securities Commission, after it decided on March 17th (perhaps during a moment of heavenly bliss) that only agents registered in the Registry of the Romanian National Securities Commission can take over the subscription forms for public stock offerings.
However, some of the brokerage firms have very few agents registered with the CNVM, which means that the decision angered many people in the market. It wouldn"t have been such a problem, but the document in question didn"t do so well with the Ministry of the Economy, which will hold a sale for a stake of 9.84% of the shares of Petrom.
Even though Lorand Kralik, a commissioner of the Romanian National Securities Commission said on March 20th, 2011 that there was nothing preventing brokerages from registering as many agents as they wished and that the process to do so was relatively simple, the Commission was forced to provide additional details.
In fact, the subscription forms can be submitted by the entities which are part of the distribution group, including by any branches or agencies of the brokerage firms, and after that, the subscription forms would be taken over by the people certified by the Romanian National Securities Commission to perform the professional services stipulated in the law no. 297/2004 concerning the capital market", the Romanian National Securities Commission stated in a press release issued yesterday.
In other words, what the CNVM is saying is that in fact, its own decision of March 17th does nothing to change the existing legal environment.
Meaning it was pointless.
In reality, the document of March 17th, would have forced all those eager to subscribe in the offerings to crowd in the offices of the few agents of the brokerage firm which were registered with the CNVM.
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