New Changes to the Set of Laws

Adopted amendments to the set of laws

At the session held on December 17th, 2020, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted amendments to a number of laws, including:

  • Law on Capital Market;
  • Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing;
  • Law on Restitution of Confiscated Property and Compensation.

Law on Amendments to the Law on Capital Market

The latest changes are as follows:

A new Article 25a entitled “Special rules for a single prospectus relating to debt securities” is introduced, which contains the following rules:

  • the form and minimum content of the single prospectus related to debt securities is regulated by a bylaw of the Securities Commission and does not contain an abbreviated prospectus;
  • information on the issuer from the prospectus, provided that it is available in public registers, i.e. on the issuer’s website, as well as information related to the issuer’s financial and audit reports, may be presented in the prospectus by reference or direct link;
  • The components of the prospectus are: the last regular annual financial report with the auditor’s report of the issuer, the annual report on management operations, as well as the last consolidated annual financial report when the issuer is obliged to prepare it.

The moment that is considered relevant at the termination of public office is moved, i.e. it is specified that the day of the decision to convene a session of the General Meeting of Shareholders at which it is decided to withdraw shares from the regulated market, i.e. MTP is relevant the volume of turnover of shares that are subject to withdrawal from the regulated market, i.e. MTP.

 

The aim of these changes is to enable companies faster and easier access to financial resources necessary for business, it is also expected that the issuance of debt securities of companies will provide quality material that will be traded on the Belgrade Stock Exchange, which will significantly affect development and stability capital markets in the Republic of Serbia and the financial market in general.

Law on Amendments to the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

The latest changes are reflected in the following:

  • the notion of property in the sense of the Law is changed so that it includes digital property;
  • the term transaction is extended to include a transaction with digital assets in terms of the law governing digital assets;
  • providers of services related to digital assets are included in the term taxpayers in terms of the Act;
  • a new subsection 61 is introduced containing special provisions regarding the transaction with digital assets;

Article 16a is added, which provides for an exception to the obligation to establish a business relationship with a user of digital property and perform actions and measures of knowledge and monitoring of users in relation to that business relationship, if in accordance with risk analysis it is assessed that there is a low risk of money laundering or financing. terrorism and if the following 3 conditions are met:

  • the value of an individual transaction with digital assets is less than 15,000 RSD, regardless of whether it is one or more interconnected transactions, where the value of these transactions of a particular party does not exceed 40,000 RSD per month, and 120,000 RSD per year ;
  • the provider of services related to digital property has provided a tested and validated technical solution that enables the submission of a copy, i.e. a read excerpt of the party’s personal document, a photograph of the party’s person and a copy of the document information on that address (e.g. a copy of another official document or telephone or utility bill containing that information);
  • the digital asset-related service provider sufficiently monitors digital asset transactions so that it can detect unusual or suspicious transactions;
  • the provider of services related to digital property is obliged to obtain the address of digital property used by the party, i.e. used for the transaction with digital property, and if the party uses several addresses – all addresses of digital property;
  • it is prohibited to provide services related to digital property that allows direct or indirect concealment of the identity of the client, to conduct transactions with such digital property, as well as its issuance;

Penal provisions are being amended:

  • The National Bank of Serbia imposes measures and penalties on a provider of services related to digital assets that provides services related to virtual currencies in accordance with the law governing digital assets;
  • The Securities and Exchange Commission imposes measures and penalties on the provider of services related to digital tokens in accordance with the law governing digital assets.

 

The reasons for passing the Law lie in the need to harmonize with the newly adopted Law on Digital Property.

At the same time, full harmonization with international standards in this area is defined by the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) recommendations (Recommendation 15), which require licensing or registration of persons providing services related to virtual assets (virtual assets service providers), and the provisions of the Fifth Directive on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing were also taken into account.

 

Law on Amendments to the Law on Return of Confiscated Property and Compensation

The changes consist of the following:

  • the notion of compensation is specified in the sense that the beneficiary of compensation will obtain compensation on the basis of final decisions on compensation;
  • it is envisaged that compensation in cash will also be paid for compensation not exceeding the amount of EUR 1,000 per applicant;
  • it is envisaged that the beneficiary of restitution who is entitled to compensation not exceeding the amount of 1,000 euros, per beneficiary of compensation, not counting the interest, compensation is made exclusively in cash, payment of the full amount, on March 31st next year in relation to the Government Decision on bond issue, in dinar equivalent at the official middle exchange rate of the National Bank of Serbia;
  • The same article stipulates that compensation in the form of government bonds of the Republic of Serbia is performed by issuing bonds, once a year for the amount of compensation determined by the Agency for Restitution on the basis of decisions on compensation that became final by June 30th this year.
  • the deadline for determining the compensation coefficient that expired on March 1st, 2020 and the deadline for the Agency for Restitution to assess the undetermined bases of compensation in order to determine the compensation coefficient are changed.
  • the date of the beginning of the advance payment of compensation is changed so that the advance payment of compensation is paid to the beneficiaries of compensation on March 31st next year in relation to the Government Decision on the issue of bonds, in dinars at the official middle exchange rate of the National Bank of Serbia.

These changes seek to regulate some basic issues

  • dynamics of compensation bond issuance;
  • payment of compensation to beneficiaries of restitution who are entitled to compensation not exceeding the amount of 1,000 EUR;
  • advance payment of compensation and related interest.

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