VZMD President Mr. Kristjan Verbič addressed the CEO of ATVP, Ms Anka Čadež, with an open Objection against inadmissible regulatory pressure on organized representation of minority shareholders. With it he reasonably warns that since the last couple of years the Association has been dealing with unjustifiable pressure by ATVP, which is deliberately making the accomplishment of our mission (bringing together individuals and groups of citizens) difficult and ever increasingly impossible. "This is a paradox, since the care for the rights and interests of the most vulnerable groups of participants in the financial market – the minority shareholders – is supposed to be the purpose for existence not only of minority shareholder associations, but of the ATVP itself. We do not need ATVP to protect tycoons and financial intermediaries, we need it as a protection from tycoons and financial intermediaries," Mr. Verbič emphasized in his letter.
In light of the campaign against VZMD and the civil society "Share SUPPORT" (VIDEO), the administrator of which is the Association, he also reminded the CEO of ATVP of the example of (the lack of) action or supervision in the case of the brokerage firm Moja delnica (“My Share”), where millions of "guaranteed" assets of hundreds of investors simply "faded away", and of the extremely controversial practices of companies linked to ILIRIKA or rather IGOR ŠTEMBERGER, its majority owner and chairman of the Board. In contrast, VZMD never mixed its assets with assets of other minority shareholders, and assets of minority shareholders never faded away. Despite all of this, ATVP has been publicly WARNING minority shareholders against VZMD and "Share SUPPORT" on their websites for the last 5 years with the reasoning that ATVP does not have jurisdiction over VZMD, since the Association does not provide investment services and transactions.
In its persecution of everything that "smells" like VZMD, ATVP went as far as to demand that VZMD submits all of its business documentation from 2016 on in 10 working days. It has been proven that ATVP is doing so at the initiative of ILIRIKA d.d., one of the most "compromised" financial intermediaries in the Slovenian market! ATVP is prepared to go so far as to forget their warning (which has been going on for over 5 years) to shareholders against the "Share SUPPORT", because the latter is not under its supervision! "One thing is having a differentiating interpretation of the law, but it is something completely different to have different measures for different participants, and to radically change its own positions based on the daily requirements of "repressing" certain participants, individuals and groups of citizens," further warns Mr. Verbič while making an open call to Anka Čadež, the CEO of ATVP, to ensure, as a guardian of the legality of the conduct of ATVP, that ATVP:
- Stops proposing and defending legal amendments with the sole purpose of worsening the options and conditions of organized representation of minority shareholders.
- Improves the supervision of financial intermediaries, which is clearly lacking.
- Limits the scope of inquiry from VZMD to the information and data which it is unable to obtain from other sources (i.e. official registers and financial intermediary records), and does not impose disproportionate administrative burden on VZMD, the likes of which has never been witnessed by any financial intermediary (to provide records of all clients for a period of more than 5 years), thus overwhelming limited HR capacities during the most critical time of the last phase of the decommissioning of securities registry accounts, when we all should be focusing on ensuring that as many minority shareholders, beneficiaries and citizens as possible protect their assets from the final loss.
VZMD President further reminded Ms Čadež of the fact that ATVP did not have any issues abolishing registry accounts of more than 260,000 citizens in 2016 – as opposed to VZMD. Additionally, official representatives of ATVP advocated for a complete liberalization of securities trust accounts at the supreme legislative body of the Republic of Slovenia. When, as a reaction to the abolishment of the free-of-charge registry accounts in 2016 – at the express support of the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users (BETTER FINANCE) – VZMD formed the "Share SUPPORT" scheme (VIDEO), which gave minority shareholders facing a wipe-out a group and provided them with cheaper ownership of shares via trust accounts of various Slovenian attorneys, AVTP suddenly started a campaign not only against the "Share SUPPORT" but also against trust accounts of attorneys in general. ATVP tackled the aforementioned issue with such fervour that the laws had to be amended twice – the ZTFI-G amendment limited the permissible purposes of security trust ownership by attorneys (VIDEO), and the ZTFI-1 limited the duration of such accounts even for legally permissible purposes (VIDEO)! Last year, AVTP tried to get a third amendment (extension of jurisdiction of AVTP to entities which are not licensed at AVTP – attorneys), however, after persistent warnings by VZMD, they retracted their attempt of additional jurisdiction encroachment.
"There is an emerging pattern in the actions of AVTP, according to which rules do not apply to everyone but can be interpreted or even amended to the detriment of minority shareholders or individuals and groups of citizens, if they decide to use them to protect their own interests. It is ironic and shameful that this campaign is reaching its culmination particularly under the government which has declared its efforts to cut the red tape and provide financial relief to its citizens," further warns Mr. Verbič.
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