Investor Relations

58INVESTOR RELATIONSIn other words, the IR department should be in a position to do thefollowing:Identify in time, or even anticipate, new indicators investors will askfor;Coordinate between information-processing departments within theorganization (accounting, controlling, consolidation, treasury, etc);Provide restated historical data if the scope of consolidation changes orif the business portfolio is altered.2.5 UNDERSTANDING AND COMPLYINGWITH LEGAL REQUIREMENTSThe strict legal framework governing financial information and InvestorRelations is based on widely accepted principles of the following:Transparency;Equal access to information: All shareholders, regardless of their originand the number of shares owned, have a right to the same information.Lawmakers and market authorities in every country set out obligationsapplicable to issuers and those receiving information; failure to complywith these obligations is punishable by law and can lead to prosecution.Compliance is complex, and the regulatory burden can be particularly hardto manage for small and medium-sized companies. In addition, regulationstend to evolve over time and are not the same across the globe. The developmentof the European Union, the creation of new stock exchanges, and majorfinancial scandals have imposed regulations that are more and more stringent.The Regulation for Fair Disclosure in the United States, implementedin 2001, and the Transparency and Market Abuse Directives in the EuropeanUnion, effective since 2007, offer a bird’s-eye view on the most commonregulations on financial information currently effective in the world’s leadingcapital markets, toward which other regulatory systems are converging.Liability is increasingly an issue, and punishment can involve imprisonmentand/or steep fines, sometimes levied against IROs themselves.Needless to say, lawsuits can do considerable damage to the image of thepersons in question.Simply put, Investor Relations practices are governed by rules that applyto all, and the only way to limit the risk of error or failure to comply is to be