OICCI concerned over rollback on Companies Ordinance amendments

The Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) has expressed concern over the abrupt rollback of amendments to the Companies Ordinance without any prior warning or consultation with key stakeholders.

Members of the OICCI have expressed surprise over the Companies (Second Amendment) Ordinance 2020, issued on July 7, 2020 in which some amendments promulgated as recently as May 2020 vide Companies (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 and appreciated by the OICCI, were rolled back without any prior warning or consultation with key stakeholders, wrote OICCI Secretary General Abdul Aleem in a letter to Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh.

“What has surprised OICCI members is that, against the norm and past practice, we were not consulted in respect of the second amendment, especially in relation to Section 452 parameters and learnt about reversals from the media, which obviously creates quite a stir in all the international chambers and headquarters of our member companies about the policymaking procedures in Pakistan,” he said.

The key concern of foreign investors relates to reverting back to the original wording of Section 452 - Companies’ Global Register of Beneficial Ownership - which requires the declaration of all shareholdings in foreign companies, irrespective of the quantum being very minor, he said.

During discussions the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) had with the stakeholders in 2018, the OICCI had recommended that Section 452 should be deleted entirely from the Companies Act as the matter fell within the domain of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and there was no global precedence of such a law being included in the Companies Act.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2020.

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