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A Fond Farewell to Our Friend Ada Chung

September 2020 Farewell Ada Chung

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The Corporate Registers Forum (CRF) Community wishes Ada Chung, the former Registrar of Companies for Hong Kong, all the very best in her new role as Hong Kong’s new privacy commissioner. Ms Chung has served on the CRF Executive since 2007 in the capacity of Treasurer. Ms Chung also hosted the 2017 CRF Annual Conference in Hong Kong.

Ms Chung has been a strong supporter of the CRF as an organisation and a generous participant in our conferences and strategy.

Ms Ada Chung is a barrister-at-law and a Certified Public Accountant. She was appointed as the Registrar of Companies of Hong Kong in August 2007 and has since been heavily involved in the rewrite of the Companies Ordinance, the implementation of the new Companies Ordinance and the introduction of electronic company incorporation and electronic filing of company information in Hong Kong.

As a representative of the Financial Secretary, Ms Chung is an ex-officio council member of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants. She also sits on the Financial Reporting Council. Before her appointment as the Registrar, she was a Deputy Law Officer and headed the Civil Litigation Unit of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.

Ms Chung takes up the role of privacy commissioner from 4 September 2020.

[Photo kindly supplied by the Hong Kong Companies Registry]

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Notice of 2020 Annual General Meeting

September 2020 AGM CRF2020 Virtual AGM Zoom

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The Corporate Registers Forum will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday 28th October 2020 at 09:00:00 UTC.

In light of the current global Covid-19 pandemic, the AGM will be held via Zoom.

In preparation for the AGM members are invited to:

Nominate members to fill vacant Executive Officer positions. Vacant positions include the President and up to five executive committee members. You are invited to nominate representatives to fill these roles by emailing csecretariat@corporateregistersforum.org (a) name of jurisdiction and (b) jurisdiction representative by Friday 11th September 2020.
You are also invited to table any other business for consideration and or decision at the AGM by emailing secretariat@corporateregistersforum.org by Friday 11th September 2020.

Note that members must register to attend the AGM by emailing secretariat@corporateregistersforum.org, including details of (a) name of jurisdiction and (b) jurisdiction representative no later than Friday 16th October 2020. You should also include in the registration email any members of your jurisdiction that will attend with you as observers. After registration closes, the Secretariat will email details of the virtual platform including details of login credentials, meeting protocols etc.

If you are unable to attend the AGM in person you will be encouraged to submit a proxy to help meet quorum requirements. Proxy instructions and voting forms will be emailed out on 18th September 2020 and will need to be returned to secretariat@corporateregistersforum.org by Friday 16th October 2020.

Members attending the AGM will also need to complete voting forms that will be emailed out on 18th September 2020 and will need to be returned to secretariat@corporateregistersforum.org by Friday 16th October 2020.

For those who don’t use Zoom there is a free version you can download to participate in the AGM, see https://zoom.us/

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Appointment of Acting Head of the State Tax Service of Azerbaijan

June 2020 Azerbaijan CRF News

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Mr. Orkhan Nazarli has been appointed as the Acting Head of State Tax Service (STS) of Azerbaijan. In October 2019, Ministry of Taxes of Azerbaijan was incorporated into the structure of the Ministry of Economy as State Tax Service. The STS is responsible for business registrations for Azerbaijan. In May of 2020 the Charter of the State Tax Service (STS) under the Ministry of Economy was endorsed and Mr. Orkhan Nazarli was appointed an Acting Head of STS.

Mr. Nazarli throughout his career held several senior positions in a foreign auditing company and later in civil service. Prior to his latest assignment, he has been serving as an Adviser to Minister of Taxes and Head of Main Department of National Revenues under the Ministry of Taxes. We welcome Mr Nazarli to the CRF community.

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CRF Innovation Awards

April 2020 CRF Conference Innovation Award

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The CRF Innovation Awards celebrate the spirit of innovation and honours CRF jurisdictions which have successfully put in place world-class initiatives, as well as those which have creatively implemented customised solutions, to make a real difference to their stakeholders. There are two categories of awards: CRF Innovation Award (Excellence) and CRF Innovation Award (Commendation).

The awards are open to CRF members only. All members are highly encouraged to submit an entry using the attached Submission Form found here:

CRF Innovation Awards.

All entries submitted will be judged by a panel made up of members of the CRF Executive Committee. A total of five prizes, of up to USD $500.00 will be given out at the annual CRF conference.

Award recipients will be notified in Jan 2021. And to promote the sharing of information, they will be asked to present their initiative to CRF members at the conference and contribute an article to the CRF newsletter.

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CRF 2020 Conference Postponed

April 2020 COVID-19 CRF Conference CRF News Uganda

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Over the last few weeks, the coronavirus Covid-19 has emerged as an unforeseen threat. These are truly unprecedented times across the entire world, with most countries heavily impacted by border restrictions.

Within this context, our CRF Executive Committee has adopted the following CRF policy regarding the organisation of meetings and events across the organisation.

CRF Policy – Meetings and Events (COVID-19)

The CRF Executive will continue to meet on a regular basis via telephone or video. We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation.

We have made the decision to postpone our annual conference in Uganda until 2021. We will communicate in due course re-scheduled conference details and dates.

We are now looking at options for holding our annual general meeting by other means, we will communicate how and when that will occur in the near future

As members of an extended registry family, we are investigating ways to stay connected during these trying times and learn from each other’s experiences , challenges and innovations that COVID-19 may have presented to your registry.

Please email secretariat@corporateregistersforum.org with your experiences and we can look to share them through our newsletter or other means.

Finally on behalf of the CRF Executive, I hope that you remain healthy and stay safe during these challenging times.

Rosanne Bell

CRF President

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International Business Registers Report

March 2020 Benchmarking International Business Registers Report

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The 2019 International Business Registers Report has been published.

The report is structured to reflect the diversity of respondents and the joint commitment by the four worldwide registry organisations ASORLAC (Association of Registers of Latin America and the Caribbean), CRF (Corporate Registers Forum), EBRA (European Business Registers Association) and IACA (International Association of Commercial Administrators) in supporting this work on behalf of their members.

Click to view the International Business Registers Report 2019

The International Business Registers Survey and Report aims to assist business registers in comparing their own practice and performance with those of other jurisdictions. Benchmarking is one of the best ways to learn valuable lessons from others on how to improve ways of working and overcome challenges. Benchmarking in this context also serves to compare legal systems in different countries, which is critically important since legal systems are the foundation upon which all business registers operate.

The learning opportunity stretches from acquiring basic knowledge about such things as costs and fees in different jurisdictions, to more detailed information about topical issues, such as how business registers combat corporate identity theft and contribute to the international fight against economic crime.

The survey and report have evolved since 2001, growing from a small project involving a few European jurisdictions to a truly global initiative involving the cooperation and collaboration of business registers and individuals all around the world.

The survey and report are the result of the combined effort of a working group, comprising business register experts and statisticians.

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Invitation to Host the 18th Annual CRF Conference 2021

December 2019 Conference 2021 CRF Conference

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The CRF annual conference is always a highlight of the year for our members. It is the only time when we all join together, share our experiences and can really learn from each other on new developments and what has worked well within the business registry arena.

Over the years, I am always fascinated by what I learn and hear at our conferences and amazed at how quickly advancements are being made and the diverse nature as to how business registries operate and perform across the world.

The success of each conference, in large, is down to the early planning and thinking that needs to take place in advance so that ideas can start to take shape, allowing ample lead time to work through the detail.

In order for the location of the 2021 conference to be agreed, the CRF executive is currently seeking expressions of interest and or accepting applications from member jurisdictions who would be interested in hosting the annual conference. All member jurisdictions are eligible to apply.

As a host nation, you will have the opportunity to put together an exciting, interesting and engaging programme and showcase/raise the profile of your registry.

Interested member jurisdictions can find more information via this link Guide to Hosting the Annual Conference with further enquiries made to our secretariat at secretariat@corporateregistersforum.org

I would encourage you if interested to complete the application that can be found at Application to Host a CRF Conference and email your application to secretariat@corporateregistersforum.org by Friday 28th February 2020.

The executive would like to announce to members our host for 2021 by end of April 2020.

Kind regards,

Rosanne Bell

President of CRF

Executive Director, Registry – Australian Securities and Investments Commission

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Doing Business Report 2020 Released

October 2019 Doing Business DoingBusiness2020

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The World Bank have released the Doing Business Report 2020. A number of CRF members have improved their rankings. Several continue to be ranked in the top performers.

The report and related discussion may be found at https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/doingbusiness

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Azerbaijan introduces one-click registration of businesses

September 2019

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Azerbaijan One-Click. The Ministry of Taxes of the Republic of Azerbaijan have announced that from the beginning of 2019 a single procedure (including VAT registration and opening a bank account) is needed for LLCs’ with local investments to be state registered online. All procedures that were previously in place have been abolished including the necessity of validation of e-application with electronic signature. As a result, number of procedures has been decreased from 3 to 1; the duration of the procedure was reduced to 20 minutes, while requirement of financial resources, as well as number of documents have been eliminated. For more read here.

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