Companies will have to obtain permission from the authorities to conceal reporting

In order to hide their reporting from the public, companies will have to ensure that they are included in a special register of sanctioned persons. A draft of such a resolution was prepared by the government.

According to Interfax, the Ministry of Finance proposed to amend the procedure established in March 2022 for concealing the reporting of companies that fell under the sanctions. Then the government decided to temporarily restrict access to data in the State Accounting Information Resource (GIRBO). According to the document, by the end of this year, companies that have been sanctioned or are afraid of their imposition can ask the holder of the GIRBO – the Federal Tax Service – to completely or partially hide information about financial statements for 2019-2021 from public access.

According to the proposal of the Ministry of Finance, only companies included in a special list will have such an opportunity. They will have to apply to the department in order to get on this list and obtain permission to conceal accounting.

The agency will add the company to the list if sanctions have been imposed on the company itself, or if it is subject to restrictive measures due to sanctions against its owners. Applications from non-sanctioned companies will be reviewed by the government, which can list a company if it has reason to believe that a company could be subject to secondary sanctions due to interaction with an already sanctioned individual.

Listed companies will have to confirm their sub-sanction status once a year, otherwise they will be removed from the list and will have to re-publish reports. A company can be removed from the list at its request or if sanctions are lifted.

The list, which is in closed access, will be maintained by the Ministry of Finance. The persons included in it will be able to receive a certified extract about themselves.

Julia Abugalieva