Securities Commission general manager Virginia Mapp, seen here with the commission's former legal counsel Andrew Greaves, has advised the Barbados Stock Exchange to get more companies listed on the junior market.

by Stacey Russell

THE BARBADOS SECURITIES COMMISSION will pull its regulation straps tighter on companies that trade in the Over The Counter (OTC) market being planned by the Barbados Stock Exchange (BSE).

General manager Virginia Mapp issued this warning, noting that unlisted companies seeking the OTC facility to transfer stocks should prepare to be ultracompliant with market regulations.

"There are more checks and balances on them than the listed companies because the listed companies make their disclosures when they are supposed to," Mapp told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY in a telephone interview.

In fact, said the chief regulator, the BSE might be do better by encouraging smaller companies to list in the BSE's junior market of BSE.

"I'm not saying that an OTC market is not a good thing . . . . But I think what they should try to do first is get those companies to list on the junior market," she added.

Two weeks ago the BSE revealed that a consultant was gathering data that would inform the workings of an OTC market to be launched by year-end, allowing companies to trade their securities without being listed or traded on the official BSE board.

"The ones that are not listed on the stock exchange, who would not be making their disclosures to the stock exchange as required by law, they register with us and they don't always follow through every year.

"We have to get behind them to do certain things; check with the registrar of corporate affairs . . . . This is all in the interest of investor protection," the commission boss noted.

She pointed to up-to-date registration with the Department of Corporate Affairs, solvency, receivership, corporate governance structure, analyses of share value and auditing as other critical conformity issues for companies trading on an OTC market.

"Yes, the OTC market can go ahead but the Stock Exchange has to satisfy us that they are going do to all these things," Mapp stressed.