Ilham Aliyev Approved the Third Law that Restricts Freedom of Information

Yesterday President Ilham Aliyev approved amendments to the Law "On State Registration and State Register of Legal Entities", adopted by Parliament on June 12.

     These changes and additions in the law are aimed at classifying the actual information about the founders (participants) of commercial entities and their share in the authorized capital. From now on, this information may be provided on request only to:

    - Courts and investigation authorities;

    - Subjects of operational and investigative activities;

    - Monitoring of the financial authorities in connection with the fight against money laundering;

    - Bodies of execution of judgments;

    - Lawyers in the cases provided by the law lawyers and advocacy;

     - Other founders (participants) of the entity;

     - With the consent of the entity.

    Earlier, the President approved amendments to the Law "On receipt of information" and "On commercial secret." All these amendments were considered by local and international experts, as measures to reduce the transparency and the difficulty of anti-corruption investigations. -06D-