Russia’s CCI recommends amendments to proposals affecting foreign FX websites
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry recommends that the Bank of Russia takes into account websites misleading not only the clients of a given business but also of all individuals and entities that interact with a business providing misleading information.
A follow-up to FinanceFeeds’ earlier article about the Russian authorities having published a bill that may result in the blocking of the access to many foreign FX brokers’ websites in Russia…
Let’s recall that the document, drafted by the Ministry of Сommunications and Mass Media, outlines amendments to the Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”.
The amendment of interest to us is the one concerning the reasons for including domain names and website addresses in the special registry of online resources that contain information whose dissemination is prohibited in the Russian Federation. When a domain name and/or a website address are included in the registry, the access to them is blocked by the Russian authorities.
The bill proposes that the Bank of Russia will be allowed to decide whether to include a website in the registry, in case the regulator finds that the information provided from a given website is related to the provision of financial services in Russia by an entity that has no permission to do so.
The consultation period on the bill has closed and there has been some feedback on the proposed changes.
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of the Russian Federation has submitted comments, recommending some amendments to the bill.
The first remark that CCI makes is that the bill should permit appealing of the decisions of the Bank of Russia in court and should determine the responsibility of the regulator in case it errs when it comes to including a business’ website name in the registry.
The second remark concerns the targets of the misleading information – CCI recommends that the Bank of Russia takes into account websites that mislead not only the clients of a given business but also all individuals and entities that are related to a business providing misleading information. This way, if a company is misleading its counteragents and/or visitors of its website, the Bank of Russia will have the powers to block its website.
The authors of the bill have partially accepted the recommendations and have accepted the second remark. The response to the first remark is that the laws of the Russian Federation already envisage the option for appealing of the decisions of the regulator responsible for the inclusion of names in the registry in question.
FinanceFeeds has been keeping an eye on this legislative proposals, as they are set to affect foreign Forex brokers that target Russian clientele without having Forex dealer licenses issued by the Bank of Russia. Thus far, only eight companies have obtained such licenses.
