Bulgarian Govt Delays Trade Register Access Restrictions by 1 Year

The introduction of paid access by registered users only to some of the data in the Trade Register, which was supposed to enter into force on January 01, 2012, has been postponed.

MPs from center-right ruling party GERB have proposed amendments to the Trade Registry Act envisaging a one year delay for the restriction.

"The problem is that the software is not ready and it is impossible to provide access through registration", said Yuliana Koleva from GERB, one of the initiators of the legal changes.

She explained that the current proposal was for a one-year delay but added that it could be revised during the discussions.

Koleva said that the talks with the executive would make it clear whether it would take a year or less to fix the system.

The GERB MP drew attention to the fact that the software of the Trade Register had been incapable of supporting such data volumes and such access modes at the point of its approval.

The idea was to restrict public access to some of the data, private contracts and other supplementary documents to company cases, from January 2012, requiring users to file an application and obtain a registration to log in.

GERB's proposal means that the data will remain public for a year or so.

In February, the Parliamentary Legal Committee introduced amendments providing for access to the Trade Register only for certain groups – lawyers, law enforcement officers, and the police.

All other Bulgarians would have access to very basic data from the register, but not to information pertaining to business and company cases, the Legal Committee's Deputy Chair, Todor Dimitrov, informed, as cited by the Bulgarian business edition pari.bg

The amendments envisaged providing full access only to the Court, the investigative authorities, personal data operators, lawyers, notaries public, law enforcement officers, legal advisors, and tax agents.

Their access would also be monitored and there would be a log of who accessed what information and when, Dimitrov said.

The author of the proposal, the GERB MP Emil Radev, explained that the measure would stem the growing trend of personal data abuse.

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