Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has adopted bill No. 2493on joint stock companies, which proposes to allow companies to choose a corporate governance model and, along with the current two-tier corporate governance system, introduces a single-level one.
An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported that the bill at first reading was supported by 270 MPs with the required 226 supportive votes.
“This law brings the legislation into line with the requirements of reality. The general meetings are being improved: it is envisaged that they can be held in electronic form. A corporate affairs adviser is being introduced to help shareholders. The legal status of the corporate secretary has been settled. Today he or she may be appointed by the supervisory board of the company, but his or her status is not regulated,” Head of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy Danylo Hetmantsev said from the rostrum of the parliament.
At the same time, one of the main innovations of the bill is to strengthen the protection of minority shareholders, one of the authors of the bill, MP from the Servant of the People parliamentary faction Roksolana Pidlasa said.
“Today, the majority of the rights of the world’s shareholders appear only if the share of their stockholding reaches 10%,” she said.
According to the explanatory note to the bill, the bill also brings the rules on the representation of shareholders in accordance with EU law, in particular, Directive 2007/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of July 11, 2007 on the exercise of certain rights of shareholders in listed companies, and also harmonizes legislation on mergers, acquisitions and divisions of JSC with Directive 2017/1132/EC.
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has set up an ad hoc panel on protection of the investors’ rights.
A total of 319 MPs voted for this resolution at its plenary meeting on Friday.
According to an explanatory note, setting up of the commission will promote conditions for the investment activity in Ukraine and protection of rights and freedoms of the investors.
Member of the Servant of the People faction Halyna Yanchenko became head of the panel, Holos faction member Yaroslav Zhelezniak became her deputy. Eleven MPs make up the panel.
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has returned bill No. 2285-d on the public regulation of activities in the sphere of organization of gambling for refining by the committee and preparing it for repeated first reading. The document was registered in parliament on December 18.
An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that MPs did not support the bill at first reading casting only 213 votes with at least 226 required, while 243 MPs backed the decision to send the document for repeated first reading.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers registered bill No. 2285 in the parliament, and MPs submitted seven more alternative documents, among is finalized bill No. 2285-d, authored by MP Oleksandr Dubinsky (the Servant of the People parliamentary faction).
The bill proposes to limit the number of licenses for gambling establishments. In addition, it is proposed to establish mandatory verification of players when accepting bets and registering winners in the online monitoring system.
At the same time, the government bill proposes to establish special gambling zones for casinos and slot machines: the territory of five-star hotels for casinos and three star and higher rated hotels for slot machines.
The law on the national budget for 2020 provides for revenues from licenses in the field of gambling in the amount of UAH 4.4 billion, which will be sent to the budget’s special fund, and everything that exceeds the amount specified in the law will be spent on subventions to local budgets to finance various educational and healthcare programs.
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has passed a bill on the national budget for 2020 with 280 supporting votes, while at least 226 votes was required. “This budget includes much more funds for infrastructure, medicine, education, and not reduced, but increased expenses for local self-government. Moreover, all transfers and subventions to local budgets, including the State Regional Development Fund, the subvention for social economic development and the subvention for amalgamated territorial communities, are more than last year. And today, with your vote you added UAH 7 billion from the Road Fund,” Finance Minister Oksana Markarova said from the rostrum of the parliament on Thursday.
As reported, the draft national budget of Ukraine for 2020, prepared by the government for second reading, envisages the allocation of UAH 1.2 billion on the creation of the Bureau of Financial Investigations. Some UAH 1.84 billion will be spent on development and implementation of state investment projects, of which UAH 772.5 million will be allocated for healthcare, UAH 390 million – for transport infrastructure, UAH 190 million – for environmental protection, and UAH 180 million – for education.
The draft budget also envisages the allocation of UAH 52.76 million for the Government Debt Management Agency.
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada passed at first reading bill No. 2144 with amendments to the Budget Code with 264 supporting votes on October 18.
The bill sets the amount of government support for agricultural producers at a level of no more than 1% of agricultural output due to insufficient spending of these funds.
“For these purposes, the national budget for 2018 earmarked UAH 5.3 billion of expenses, of which UAH 4.2 billion was actually used, or 79.2% of planned amount, which is 0.66% of agricultural output,” the authors of the bill said in the explanatory note.
In addition, the bill determines the amount for the state fund for regional development at the level of no more than 1% of the forecasted income of the general fund of the draft national budget, according to the document.
At the same time, the parliamentary budget committee pointed out the need to refine the bill for second reading.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has registered in the parliament bill No.2285 on the regulation of organization of gambling games in the country. Though, there has been no text of the bill on the parliament’s website so far.
According to the government’s report on its website, the bill suggests restriction of a number of the licenses for the game establishments, sets a demand to place the halls with slot machines exclusively in the territory of 3-5-star hotels, casinos in the territory of five-star hotels.
In addition, the bill proposes to establish mandatory verification of players when accepting bets and registration of winnings in the online monitoring system, which should be administered by the tax service.
At the same time, the government proposes to strengthen financial and criminal liability for the gambling activities without licenses, as well as to establish the target direction of payments for the licenses in this area for the development of sports, medicine and culture.
“Legalization of the gambling business will also allow the budget to receive up to UAH 5 billion, however, the final figures for the budget revenues will depend on in which edition the deputies will adopt the law,” reads the report posted on the website.
