BULGARIAN NOTARIES PROPOSE STEPS TO FIGHT AGAINST THEFT OF COMPANIES

For more than 5-6 years the Notary Chamber of Bulgaria has been warning about the problem with theft of companies, Krasimir Katrandzhie, the Head of the Notary Chamber of Bulgaria, told BNT in an interview on 4th of February. The theft of companies in Bulgaria has become a business for some. Several times the notaries proposed changes in the Commercial Law and the law on Commercial Register, Katrandzhiev added.

He said that the Commercial Register turned into a field of opportunity for fraud, because the control was reduced to minimum.

The Notary Chamber has proposed changes to Ordinance 32 that regulates the archives of the notaries. An information database has been introduced and has worked for 6 years, which helped to counter property fraud.

Change of company managers is the most recent trend. The new manager opens a bank account and starts selling the property of the company.

To fight against the frauds, the representatives of the Notary Chamber propose all certificates for transfer of company shares to be recorded in a special information database of the notaries and this database to be directly connected with the Registry Agency.

At this stage, the relevant committee with the Ministry of Justice, has concluded that this will be implemented through amendments to the secondary legislation. To that end, an Ordinance has been adopted, which will be published in the next days and will be applicable.

The Notary Chamber had no statistics on the number of stolen companies, but for sure it was not a question of isolated cases, Katrandzhiev explained.

He has said that part of the problem is that the officials dealing with registrations work with documents, which are presented to them in a scanned format and they are unable to verify whether the document is authotntic or whether it is issued by a competent notary.

A reason for the problem is the use of electronic signature and acceptance of the documents electronically. Most frequently the target of the fraudsters are companies with many assets and huge turnover. The frauds are carried out through false documents and electronic signature. In Bulgaria, there are more than 400,000 electronic signatures, large number of which belong to people who  sold their identity.

He gave an example with a business person, who became target of a fraudulent theft. He was a manager of a big company for agricultural land and lost a large amount of the land as a result of the fraud. The theft was carried out though the use of electronic signature in the Commercial Register and fake contract for sale, which was accepted in the Registry Agency without being verified.

On the second day after the theft, the pseudo buyers sold some of the land.

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