Russian legislators are preparing amendments to a draft law on insider information to tighten the rules of nonpublic information disclosures by government officials and regulators, the chairman of an influential parliament committee said on Thursday.
Vladislav Reznik, chairman of the State Duma committee for financial markets, said Russia needs a law or a sublaw to ban officials enjoying access to insider information from making statements on traded issuers in the process of trading.
Reznik said the need for tough restrictions for such statements became especially obvious on Wednesday when a senior official of Russia's Central Bank accused Sberbank, the country's largest state-run bank, of numerous violations and lamented that the regulator was unable to take measures against the bank due to a conflict of interest.
The Central Bank of Russia holds a majority stake in Sberbank.
Reznik said the official's statement on the Central Bank's plans to withdraw from the capital of Sberbank could only be welcomed but the statement dragged Sberbank's shares, which are among the most liquid stocks on the domestic share market, down more than 2% during trading.
"If the law was in effect, the official would have been held responsible for such revelations. Today, however, such statements go unpunished," he said.
MOSCOW, May 20 (RIA Novosti)
