New Laws to Bolster Independence of Financial Watchdog
The government adopted Thursday amendments to two laws in a move that it says will strengthen the independence of the Securities Market Agency and the Insurance Supervision Agency. Even more far-reaching steps may follow soon.
The changes to the act on financial instruments and the insurance act will address the shortcomings in the work and oversight activities of the two agencies, Finance Ministry State Secretary Ziga Lavric told the press after the weekly government session.
The agencies would have greater independence in hiring new staff if necessary and setting salaries. It was initially planned that the employees would be exempt from the public sector wage system, but Lavric said the plan was dropped as it could trigger similar demands by other civil servants.
The proposal gives the agencies greater scope to request information, and it gives them the power to slap a EUR 50,000 fine on companies or organisations failing to comply.
It also allows for the option to hire experts for the governing boards of the two watchdogs; up until now all five members of the governing board had to be full-time agency employees.
As the Finance Ministry said in a statement, the independence of the two agencies needs to be bolstered considering some "irreparable consequences in the concentration of ownership and unacceptable coordinated actions by individuals in some companies".
The ministry did not specify the companies or the individuals, but beverage group Pivovarna Lasko and conglomerate Istrabenz have been in the spotlight lately after it was disclosed that their bosses control the companies through multiple interconnected shareholdings.
Lavric said, however, that the amendments were not the final solution, as the government would have to consider merging the supervisory authorities, which the majority of EU member states have already done.
That would mean merging the two agencies with the banking oversight division of the central bank. Yet this is a process so comprehensive that it will have to be tackled in future, according to Lavric.
More articles from this issue:
Archive
|