PRINCIPLES OF OPENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY IN THE ACTIVITIES OF PUBLIC INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

This article was written to address nowadays issues of openness and transparency of business in Kazakhstan. Since the public company institution has been discontinued in Kazakhstan, the author of this research draws attention to a large group of businesses associated with the activities being public in nature and thus subject to the requirements like those applied to former public companies. The purpose of this research is to identify the extent of legal control of social relationships in regards to the regulatory stipulation of public interest companies’ obligation to disclose legally required information, identify gaps in regards to this matter and develop recommendations on improvements in legislation.  Definition of public interest was given for the purpose of this research; this is the first time when a systematic approach was taken towards the statutory framework of multiple laws on each type of legal entities accepted in the Republic of Kazakhstan as organizations with the business activity pertaining to public interest; the grounds were given for classifying those as such. The author analyzed the types of information subject to disclosure on the website of Finance Reporting Depository and Stock Exchange. Herewith the Author has identified some gaps (according to him) in the regulatory framework of the activities run by the organizations having public interest, because the legislation does not provide legal norms identifying their obligation to disclose in a public domain of the Reporting Depository their finance reports and details on their corporate events. In support of his own concept the author has analyzed the content of multiple websites of the governmental agencies and special organization publishing such corporate information, and securities market updates, and finance reporting.  In his closing summary the author is sharing his recommendations on the improvements to be made in the applicable legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan in regards to the above issues.