Second phase of amnesty schemes ends on 31st

KARACHI: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has announced that the second phase of its company amnesty schemes will close on August 31.

Under the Companies Regularisation Scheme (CRS) and Companies Easy Exit Scheme (CEES) launched on July 1, the companies have been provided an opportunity to get themselves regularised by filing their overdue returns or get dissolved, the SECP said in a press release on Friday evening.

The SECP said only three days are left before the end of the second phase of the schemes and advised the companies to get immediate benefit of them as the fees will go up in the third and final phase.

At the end of last month, the SECP announced that 250 companies had regularised their defaults and filed 700 returns by July 27 under the first phase of the Company Regularisation Scheme.

Similarly, it said, under the Companies Easy Exit Scheme around 100 companies had applied to avail themselves of the exit facility.

“These companies have deposited around Rs1.6 million and more companies will come forward in the last days of the first phase of the schemes. On the last day of previous year, the defaulting companies had deposited Rs4 to Rs5 million,” Director Registration SECP Mohammad Siddique said.

The schemes are for three months from July 1 to September 30 with three phases of one month each having different fee schedules. The first phase ended on July 31.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2010.