This week, the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users (Better Finance) has sent the Minister of Finance, Mr. Andrej Bertoncelj, a letter containing warnings as to specific articles of the bill of the Financial Instruments Market Act (ZTFI-1), which was drafted by the Ministry together with the Securities Market Agency (ATVP), and is being read in the National Assembly under urgent procedure.

In the letter, President of Better Finance, Ms. Jella Benner-Heinacher, and Managing Director of Better Finance, Mr. Guillaume Prache, note that it has been already the second time in less than two years that investors and minority shareholders are given limited options to mitigate costs incurred by the financial intermediaries. In so doing, they particularly put stress on the attempts to discontinue the "Share SUPPORT" at the VZMD, and on the unique costs, which are charged by the financial intermediaries in Slovenia for dividend payouts. The letter by Better Finance is to a great extent in line with the recent VZMD's warnings, as well as the  official response by the prominent VZMD's associates.

In addition to Minister of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia, the letter was also sent to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr. Dejan Židan, Prime Minister, Mr. Marjan Šarec, VZMD President, Mr. Kristjan Verbič, Vice President of the European Commission in charge of Euro and Social Dialog, Financial Stability and Financial Services as well as Capital Markets Union, Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Justice, Ms. Vera Jourova, and Director-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, Mr. Olivier Guersent.

On Friday, the joint meeting of the World Federation of Investors (WFI) and World Federation of Young Investors (WFYI) at the Paris Stock EURONEXT marked the conclusion of the annual meeting of the WFI on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the French Federation of Individual Investors and Investor Clubs (F2iC). Original digital solutions developed by the F2iC were presented at the joint meeting to name but a few. 

It looks like the scandalous positions assumed by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia and the Securities Market Agency (ATVP) are shifting from modest silence (as for example in the case of calls for deterring craftsmen and entrepreneurs, and threats of nationalization) to concrete actions, as they advise shareholders, who are not fond of the proposed legislation, uniquely suited to financial elites, to transfer their accounts abroad!  The Minister of Finance Mr. Andrej Bertoncelj, namely responded  to constructive and well-supported suggestions by the VZMD by flatly expressing the following position: "Anyone can avoid the general prohibition to establish trust accounts imposed by the Republic of Slovenia by opening such accounts abroad." It has been a long time since such words last echoed on our ground, more precisely since the times of the Meeting of Truth at the Ušće in Belgrade, Serbia, when Mihajlo Švabić urged “disobedient” Slovenes to leave the country:  »All those Slovenes who are not in favor of contemporary Serbia and the brotherly united Yugoslavia, may as well move to Graz or Philadelphia.« Back then we had enough reason and sense of unity to ban such meetings in Slovenia. Should we now fall prey to an identical attitude acquired by our elected representatives and special agencies?! But the Ministry of Finance doesn’t stop there with its tips and tricks, as they act contrary to the European rules (Article 38 of the Regulation (EU) No. 909/2014), which expressly prohibit imposing additional restrictions on trust accounts in addition to those not valid on September 17, 2014.

Last Friday, a business conference was held at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia (GZS) on the occasion of the visit of the business delegation from Beijing. Over 60 conference participants were offered an insight into Slovene and Chinese business environments, organizations, and specific economic sectors. In addition, two letters of intent were signed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), and Public agency SPIRIT Slovenia and China International Fair for Trade in Service (CIFTIS). The introductory speeches were held by Mr. Yuan Kehua, economic counselor from the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Slovenia, Mr. Zhang Yongming, general manager of the CCPIT, and Ms. Sonja Šmuc, general manager of the GZS. The event concluded with B2B meetings of Slovene and Chinese participants.

The annual meeting of the World Federation of Investors (WFI) will start in Paris next week with the General assembly and conference organized by this prominent international organization in collaboration with its youth section WFYI, and the French Federation of Individual Investors and Investment Clubs (F2iC). Many receptions will take place in the margins of the conference, one of them being organized at EURONEXT stock exchange, where WFI members will ring the opening bell to solemnly announce the beginning of the day trade. This time too, the PanSlovenian Investors' & Shareholders' Association (VZMD) – a long-standing active member of the WFI – will be represented at the meeting by Mr. Kristjan Verbič, President of the VZMD, who will, in addition to participating in the intensive program, also attend many other meetings.

After ex-Governor Mr. Boštjan Jazbec cashed in his coupon to cancel over 100,000 domestic investors (while the excessive capitalization of Slovenian banks cost at least 2 billion euros) and took on a comfortable EU position after he had received the outrageous amount of €75,000 in severance pay, the PanSlovenian Investors' & Shareholders' Association (VZMD) has closely monitored the process of appointing the new Governor of the Bank of Slovenia. The Slovene public has come to develop a high level of awareness about Mr. Jazbec’s fishy activities, which are now under criminal investigation. According to information from the media, a broad range of candidates is now applying for the position of the new Governor.

In last week’s extensive article entitled Pressures on Slovenia, Which Are Not Discussed Publicly (www.delo.si/novice/slovenija/pritiski-na-slovenijo-o-katerih-se-na-glas-ne-govori-81803.html), the leading newspaper (Delo) disclosed the continuous and ever greater pressures on Slovenia to withdraw from the investigation of these acts, despite reasonable grounds for suspecting that in the fall of 2013 the then heads of the Bank of Slovenia committed a number of crimes in the process of expropriating NLB Bank investors (VIDEO). What is more, Delo discloses that at first the European Commission had tried to handle the matter in non-formal settings - failing this, they resorted to formal procedures. As disclosed months ago by the Siol portal (www.siol.net/posel-danes/novice/pod-oznako-zaupno-guverner-jazbec-hujskal-ecb-proti-sloveniji-453486), Mr. Boštjan Jazbec, ex-Governor of the Bank of Slovenia, now main person under investigation, added considerably to these pressures by actively meddling and sending confidential letters to EU officials.

Last week, the VZMD  sent to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia founded suggestions for the changes to apply to three articles of the Financial Instruments Market Act  (ZTFI-1) as suggested by the outgoing government of the Republic of Slovenia. Despite fierce opposition of the VZMD and some members of the National Assembly, at the end of last month the Collegeof the President of the National Assembly endorsed the reading of the ZTFI-1 under urgent procedure. The VZMD therefore calls on all deputy groups to address the new act or the “constitution” of the financial instruments market in a responsible and in-depth manner despite the adopted urgent procedure, and to at least remedy the weaknesses against which the professional public together with the VZMD issued strong warnings based on concrete assessments, reviews, and suggestions.

The VZMD strongly opposed the urgent adoption procedure of the new ZTFI mainly due to the fact that the excuse of transferring provisions required by EU directives is all too often used (while lacking proper discussion)  to bring forward provisions, which have nothing to do with European regulation requirements. Instead, these are “home-grown planted ideas.” With the aim to pursue particular interests of the financial industry, these ideas are usually served by the Securities Market Agency (ATVP), the Bank of Slovenia, and the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia, who clearly feel as if they were the chosen ones to protect the financial industry from minority shareholders. Therefore, in August VZMD's associates had to once again prepare the proposals of amendments and warn the public about the highly questionable provisions of the ZTFI-1 bill, which have absolutely nothing to do with the declared objectives, said to be the reason for the urgent adoption of ZTFI-1.

The proposed Article 187 of ZTFI-1 consolidates the existing outrageous practice, which enables financial intermediaries to “sell” their clients to the best bidder, as if they were bags of potatoes. The last such case was GBD d.d., which ceased to carry out its investments services and sold its clients to the Austrian BKS Bank AG. Such unacceptable acts must be prevented by incorporating an additional provision to Article 187 of the ZTFI-1, as suggested by the VZMD. But the unfair practices of charging for financial intermediaries’ services doesn’t end with “selling” minority shareholders. In fact, the financial industry took advantage of the previous so-called “alignments with European standards” to introduce “innovative” compensations, which don’t exist in European practices.  Particularly outstanding is the charging for the payment of each dividend. In previous years, the VZMD identified cases where minority shareholders had to pay an amount higher than the value of the dividend for the payment of the dividend! The least that we can do in such instances is to provide minority shareholders with the possibility to combine multiple dividends into a single payment to bear the payment costs only once. In view of this, VZMD proposes a concrete supplement of Article 287 of the ZTFI-1.

It is commonly known that  European requirements aren’t there to “persecute” trust accounts used by minority shareholders to mitigate to a certain extent and with professional assistance (lawyers or public notaries) the greed for “compensation” shown by the financial industry (or brokerage firms and banks). One of such possibilities is also used by Share SUPPORT at VZMD (VIDEO), which improved the position of thousands of minority shareholders! The European regulation protects and safeguards such possibilities, since Article 38 of the EU Regulation no. 909/2014 doesn’t allow for new or additional restrictions to trust accounts to those valid on 17 September 2014. In contrast with this, for the last two years the Republic of Slovenia have seen a “campaign” aimed at suppressing Share SUPPORT, which is disgracefully led by ATPV. At the VZMD, they oppose the adoption of a solution carried out under the profane pretense of adopting European directives, which isn’t compliant with the European legislation and which paints a tragic picture of the existence of minority shareholders in Slovenia! Therefore VZMD’s associates propose an adequate change of Article 296 of ZTFI-1, to stand up to further elimination of minority shareholding activities in the Republic of Slovenia.

On Monday and Tuesday, Brussels hosted the annual meeting of the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users (Better Finance). On Monday, the meeting of the Executive Board was followed by the General Meeting of this influential European federation, which brings together over 4 million individual investors from Europe.

While shareholders and bondholders of six major Slovenian banks who were expropriated in 2013 have been waiting for more than a year and a half in vain for the unconstitutionality of the Banking Act (ZBan-1L) to be remedied, which was imposed on the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, the representative of the Civil Initiative »Canceled Minority Shareholders of the NKBM bank« and member of the PanSlovenian Investors' & Shareholders' Association (VZMD) Expert Council, Mr. Peter Glavič, sent a request for public access to ECB documents to European Central Bank (ECB) at the end of May. As Mr. Glavič pointed out, he sent a letter to the ECB, since »the Constitutional Court has not yet given the green light to the Court of Auditors to access the documentation of the Bank of Slovenia about the events between 2012-2014«. After receiving the answer, the Civil Initiative informed the Constitutional Court, the Court of Auditors, the Government and the National Assembly, that there are no obstacles whatsoever for an investigation in the Bank of Slovenia and for the law remedying the unconstitutionality.

Last night the Slovene business delegation to the Republic of Kazakhstan arrived in the capital city of Astana. Mr. Kristjan Verbič, President of PanSlovenian Investors’ & Shareholders’ Association (VZMD) , joined the delegation at the invitation of the organizers, Public agency SPIRIT Slovenia, the Kazakh Invest Agency, and the Kazakh-Slovene Business Club.