BISX Takes Steps To Help Companies With Regulatory Filings

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

10 August 2005

In an effort to promote timely and consistent disclosure by its listed companies, the Bahamas International Securities Exchange (BISX) has announced the completion of the first in a series of Continuing Obligations Filing Forms.

The forms, which have been developed over the past few weeks, were created to provide Corporate Secretaries and Directors with a straight-forward approach to meet their obligations under the BISX Rules.

The forms, announced on Monday, include:

• Director Listing Form
• Director Declaration Form
• Change of Director Notification Form
• Dividend Declaration Form
• Insider Security Interest Form
• Insider Trading Form

Commenting on the introduction of these new forms, Keith Davies, BISX Chief Executive, stated:

"Over the last several years we focused heavily on simply getting companies to understand their filing obligations and then to comply with them. In fact, we did a very good job, because companies began to comply, but in many different ways via emails and letters sent via fax or regular mail. So I took the affirmative step to standardize the filing process and the result is this set of new forms."

"All of the listed companies have responded quite positively to the introduction of the new forms. Now they understood that moving forward their lives will be much simpler, and they will not have to wonder whether they have complied with the BISX Rules."

Mr. Davies also indicated that BISX would continue to develop additional forms to assist listed companies with their regulatory filing responsibilities.

"Ultimately, the goal is for BISX to produce a Filing Booklet that will contain all the forms necessary to comply with BISX Rules. This is particularly important as we embark on our next exercise which is to standardize the annual and quarterly financial filings submitted by listed companies," he explained.

The new forms have been designed to be completed electronically prior to submission to the exchange. The BISX has stated that its expectation is for these and future BISX forms to be the basis for a totally electronic corporate filing and archiving system that will be available to investors via the internet.

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