OREANDA-NEWS. October 20, 2010. The MICEX Stock Exchange is putting into effect the new version of the Rules for Listing, Admission to Placement of and Trading in Securities on the MICEX Stock Exchange (hereinafter, the Listing Rules), which were registered by the FFMS of Russia on September 30 this year. The new version of the Listing Rules gives foreign securities access to placement and trading on the MICEX Stock Exchange. It also enables to upgrade the technology and the procedure for document interchange between issuers and the Exchange and reduces the time of taking decisions on the admission of securities to trading.

According to the MICEX President Ruben Aganbegyan, the new listing rules give issuers and market participants new possibilities, reduce companies’ time and efforts involved in interaction with the Exchange and improve the quality of the evaluation of securities. “The adoption of the new rules is the first step in simplifying the procedure for the admission of securities to the Exchange. We are prepared to go further and bring the listing system into line with international standards. It’s a lot of work that has to be done jointly with market participants and with the support of the regulator. Our goal is to organize a convenient entrance of the Russian stock market for issuers, which will contribute to the creation of an international financial center in Russia.”

Due to changes in the legislation on the placement of and public trading in foreign issuers’ securities in the Russian Federation, the following amendments have been made to the Listing Rules:

• a new type of foreign issuer, “foreign organizations”, has been defined (before, only securities of international financial institutions and foreign countries were admitted to placement and trading);

• the list of requirements the fulfillment of which allows foreign issuers’ securities to be admitted to trading on the MICEX SE has been supplemented and improved;

• the list and format of documents submitted by foreign issuers to the Exchange has been modified;

• information and documents that foreign issuers have to submit to the Exchange must be in Russian.

The new version of the Listing Rules provides for a set of measures to modernize the flow document of between the issuers and the Exchange. In particular:

• the implementation of electronic document interchange between issuers and the Exchange. This includes the expansion of the list of documents and information provided by issuers to the Exchange in an electronic form only;

• changes in the Exchange’s approach to the format of the provision of information by issuers. This includes shortening the list of documents submitted by issuers to the Exchange (for certain types of issuers the number of documents has been decreased by more than 50%);

• the extension of the period of consideration of the issuer’s application by the Exchange if the issuer has submitted incomplete or incorrect information (before, the issuer had to submit the documents once again).

In accordance with the current version of the Charter of the MICEX SE, the competence of the managerial bodies of the Exchange as defined in the Listing Rules has been altered. Thus, in accordance with the new version of the Listing Rules, most operational decisions concerning the placement of and trading in securities are within the competence of the Exchange’s CEO. This shortens the time of making decisions on the admission of securities to trading by 1–2 days.

In connection with the creation of the MICEX Stock Exchange’s Listing Committee, the new version of the Listing Rules provide for the use of the results of the work of this Committee when making decisions relating to the admission of securities to trading and trading in securities on the MICEX SE. The purpose of creating the Listing Committee is the formation of expert opinion about the level of investment risk and the preparation of recommendations for the admission of securities to trading and trading modes.