Founders might be obliged to prove origin of investments in registered share capital higher than 15,000 lei in Moldova

Chisinau, 18 July /MOLDPRES/ - Founders participating in the company’s registered share capital with a contribution worth 15,000 lei and more “present the acts providing the funds’ origin,” under a draft law on the amendment of normative acts, approved by the cabinet of ministers today.  

The government noted that “it is necessary to reason the sum of “15,000 lei”, as, in line with the provisions of the law on stock companies, “the company’s registered share capital cannot be smaller than 20,000 lei.” “Moreover, we deem as judicious the concrete specification of the “acts proving the origin of the funds,” the notification reads.

At the same time, the concerned norm is to be correlated with the provisions of the law on the prevention and combating of money laundering and financing terrorism, according to which, “at the creation, reorganization of the reporting unit or at the increase of the registered share capital, the bodies with supervision duties, with the support of the Service for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering, identifies and verifies the private persons and legal entities who intend to become associates (shareholders), the sources of the assets and financial means used for the contribution to the registered share capital.”    

The draft establishes that, if associates are not able to prove the origin of the cash contribution in the registered share capital, if it amounts to 15,000 lei and more for each associate, the authorities will refuse to register the legal entity.

According to the notification, it is wrong from the conceptual viewpoint to ban the conclusion of any contracts with persons from certain states, as not only the rights of persons are thus limited in an unjustified way, but also the national interests are harmed (for instance, possibility of extending the exports markets of the national production, etc. is limited). The draft’s authors suggest that, when the state registers legal entities with foreign legal investments, in the case of existence of founders legal entities set up in chain or which are controlled successively, the extracts from national registers from the states of residence of all these legal entities will be presented too.  

The notification contains more proposals also to other amendments included in the draft law, submitted as initiative by a group of lawmakers.