Russian issuers have successfully held their first shareholder meetings since its new processing technology, mandated by law, came into effect on 1 July.
According to the National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s central securities depository, 10 shareholder meetings and five bondholder meetings have gone ahead without any missed deadlines or technical failures reported throughout the whole corporate actions lifecycle.
All corporate actions were processed electronically using the ISO 20022 international messaging standards. According to NSD, the success of these first meetings using the new technology reflects the readiness of market participants for new legal and technological innovations.
The new procedures are designed to standardise the corporate actions process, reducing costs for market participants and improving quality and transparency of corporate governance on the Russian market.
Implementation of the new rules follows significant testing with market participants including work on interactions and helping market participants to fine-tune their internal procedures and systems.
Now, all meetings of securities holders on the Russian market will be held in a centralised manner through record-keeping institutions such as NSD.
Issuers are obligated to submit all information related to exercising corporate actions rights to the depository in the correct electronic format, and must also offer market participants the option of using e-proxy voting technology.
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