Corruption, Financial Services, Legislation, Lithuania, Markets and Companies

International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Thursday, 28.03.2024, 16:56

Large transactions will have to be registered with a notary public in Lithuania

Danuta Pavilenene, BC, Vilnius, 19.09.2014.Print version
On Thursday, the Seimas adopted amendments which bind over to go to a notary public if one wants to borrow more than LTL 10,000 (EUR 2,898). President Dalia Grybauskaite, who worked out these amendments, is convinced that residents deserve such suspicions of corruption, therefore, they should have even heavier bureaucratic burden, informed LETA/ELTA, referring to Vakaro zinios.

Beginning with the upcoming year, large transactions will have to be registered with a notary public. Grybauskaite yesterday said that her amendments "would help to fight unjust enrichment as there would be no ways to justify illegally acquired assets with forged debt notes, bills and share buy-sell agreements". "Thieves and frauds must receive proper punishment," the president said. Once the amendments come into force, loans in cash exceeding LTL 10,000 will have to be confirmed at a notary public. Up until now, natural persons were allowed to borrow from each other unlimited amounts without any need to go to a notary public.

 

Julius Sabatauskas, chairman of the Seimas Committee on Legal Affairs, explains that it was decided to tighten the procedure of transaction confirmation for the reason that parliament refused to put limits on cash payments.

 

"I believe that these amendments will bring in more transparency, clarity and prevent misuse. Take a look at the situation now: tax return documents of both politicians and businessmen say that the current amount of their funds stands at half a million litas (EUR 145,000), the borrowed amount – one million (EUR 290,000), the lent amount - LTL 2 million (EUR 580,000). There are tax returns which immediately raise strong suspicions whether those transactions really exist, whether those really were loans," the politician said to the daily Vakaro Zinios.

 

Opponents of the amendments, however, believe that such changes will only burden business. In the view of member of the Liberal Movement's political group Remigijus Simasius, it is not the fault of people that law enforcement fails. "This draft law was passed also for the reason that it would purportedly help to fight the shadow economy. But in fact, to my mind, this draft law was made only to cover the ineffectiveness of the law enforcement institutions. If asked to show their results of fighting the shadow, they like saying that they lack instruments. Now these instruments were given to them. However, they heavily burden business conditions. They might kill some very good ideas which would create jobs and income. If private limited companies are obliged now to sell their shares through a notary public, business in Lithuania will waste more time and have bigger expenses. And if companies want to exchange shares abroad, which is likely, one might have problems with trying to make that investor go to a public notary in Lithuania," Simasius said.






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