Vedomosti learned that the authorities will discuss a return to disclosure of financial statements

The option not to disclose their financial statements has been in effect for a number of banks and companies since last spring, the moratorium expires on July 1. According to Vedomosti, the authoritieswill discuss with business a return to transparency on May 15

The Russian government has scheduled a meeting for top managers of large companies on May 15, at which the issue of extending the period of non-disclosure of corporate reporting will be discussed, Vedomosti reports, citing sources. The preferential regime, which allowed issuers to temporarily reduce transparency, was introduced last spring as part of a package of measures to protect businesses from sanctions and will expire on July 1.

The sources of the newspaper specified that, in addition to representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers, curators of the financial market from the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank were invited to a meeting with business. At the meeting, it is planned to discuss the problems of returning to the full transparency regime and possible changes in the composition of the data required to be disclosed by issuers, Vedomosti notes.

One of the interlocutors of the publication said that back in February, the Ministry of Finance sent a request to issuers to formulate a position on the transition to full disclosure of corporate reporting in accordance with the law, and also to clarify what information required to be published remains sensitive to them.

As a source close to the government clarified, not all companies are ready to return to full transparency, which is argued primarily by sanctions risks for business. Another argument is the unwillingness to be associated with supplies for the needs of the Ministry of Defense, a source in one of the large companies said. Moreover, the disclosure of information may create risks for the country's defense capability - this will allow at least an approximate estimate of the amount of metal, fuel, etc. consumed by the army, he believes.

According to all interlocutors of Vedomosti, representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank insist on a return to a regime of almost complete transparency in accordance with current legislation. Even in the pre-sanctions regulatory framework, there are more than enough opportunities for the seizure of sensitive information, and the scale of such seizures is at the mercy of the companies themselves, a source close to the government explained the position of the financial authorities.

The Bank of RUSSIA told Vedomosti that a return to information disclosure by issuers would be "positively received by investors and, in general, will contribute to the development of the market and fair competition." “At the same time, sanctions risks, which are still sensitive for many companies, should also be taken into account. It is necessary to find a balance of interests,” the representative of the Central Bank said.

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Russian banks and other issuing companies may not fully or partially disclose corporate information until July 1, follows from a government decree. Initially, this period was valid until December 31 last year, but then was extended. At the same time, in March, against the background of the imposition of sanctions by Western countries, the Central Bank allowed banks to classify part of the data in their statements starting from February last year.

Using the right not to disclose financial statements, companies must clearly explain why they are doing this, said the HEAD of the supervisory board of the Moscow Exchange, the former first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Sergey Shvetsov. He called it important to control the compliance of companies with the “comply or explain” principle: “Either the stock exchange or the Central Bank as a regulator should receive a clear explanation from public companies why this or that information is not disclosed. And the explanations really need to be intelligible, otherwise we will just come to July with another desire of public companies to extend this informational [vacuum], without this the capital market will not be able to do anything at all.”

After the imposition of a moratorium on disclosure, officials and financiers have repeatedly spoken about the need to resume the publication of data. “Of course, we were put in a position where we had to close the information without wanting to. And we are well aware that in order for people to invest in the stock market, they must receive information about the state of the issuers whose securities they buy. So that analysts can write reports, so that people can use these reports or directly form their opinion on these reports, ”said Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev in an interview with RBC. Later, he clarified that "some kind of reporting should be in the spring."

According to Vedomosti, over the past year, 13 out of 37 companies in the Moscow Exchange index did not disclose their IFRS financial statements at all - neither interim nor annual. Among them are mainly companies from the extractive and raw materials sectors - Severstal, Gazprom, Alrosa, MMK, NLMK, NOVATEK, LUKOIL, Surgutneftegaz, Transneft, Aeroflot, Inter RAO, PIK and Rostelecom. Some of these companies disclosed annual or quarterly figures under RAS - Gazprom, Inter RAO, NOVATEK and LUKOIL. Rosneft and Tatneft are the only oil companies to have published financial results for the entire last year under IFRS.