securities commission of the bahamas at a glance

SECURITIES COMMISSION OF THE BAHAMAS 2006REGULATORY ACTIVITIESPOLICY DEVELOPMENTSIn 2006, the Commission approved and implementedseveral policies, which include:-(1) Commission Approved Reduction in SecuritiesExchange Annual Registration FeeThe Commission, in its February 2006 meeting,approved a decrease in the Securities Exchange AnnualRegistration Fee from $25,000 to $10,000. Theapproval by the Commission was in response to arequest from the Bahamas International StockExchange (BISX) to have the Securities ExchangeAnnual Registration Fee reduced.(2) Interim Money Laundering and CounteringTerrorist Financing GuidelinesIn July 2006, the Interim Guidelines on the Preventionof Money Laundering and Countering of TerroristFinancing replaced the existing Guidelines on Anti-Money Laundering issued by the Financial IntelligenceUnit in 2001, with regard to Anti-Money Launderingand Know-Your-Customer (KYC) procedures.The named guidelines issued by the Commission weredrafted to provide general guidance to licensees andregistrants on the standards required for compliancewith the Financial Transaction Reporting Act, 2000 andthe Financial Transaction Reporting Regulations, 2000.(iii) A change in their rules to allow shareholders totransfer rights to each other.Upon the Commission’s review of BISX’s requestsregarding the named amendments, the Commissionapproved them at its February 2006 meeting.(4) Approval to Amendments of BISX’s Fee SchedulesThe Commission, in October 2006, approved that BISXamend its Fee Schedule to facilitate the listing ofgovernment securities and the securities ofgovernmental agencies.BISX’s request was based on the recommendationscontained in the Report of The Bahamas StockExchange Committee that was approved by the Cabinetof the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and BISXShareholders.In considering the approval of the requests outlinedabove, the Commission noted that the desired feeamendments compared favourably with thosepresently being applied to equities listed on BISX.The amendments to BISX fee schedule can be found inTable 5 below:Table 5 – Overview of BISX Fee Amendments(3) Approval of BISX’s 2006 Corporate FinanceInitiativesThe Bahamas International Stock Exchange, in itsefforts to advance several corporate finance initiativesand collaborative efforts with the government, asoutlined in the government’s Capital Market PolicyStatement, requested that the Commission approve:(i) Changes to BISX’s capital structure;(ii) Amendments to BISX’s Articles of Association;andDESCRIPTIONGovernmentSecuritiesTransaction Price forGovernmentSecuritiesFEE(1) Application Fee – a one - time$2,500(2) Initial Listing Fee – to beremoved(3) Annual Fee – 1.5 base pointson the value of the offer(1) five basis points on the valueof each complete buy or sellorder matched per tradingsession.11