Legal Blog

Registration of companies Commercial register overloaded

The registration, re-registration and changes in the files of the companies is delaying again. The reason is that the Commercial register receives more applications than they can handle. The result is one and a half weeks delay in processing the applications. This is valid for all type of applications, no matter if they are for registration, re-registration of companies or just application for filing changes to the companies files. I wonder what will happen in the end of year 2010, when thousands of companies will file their applications at once.

MHLegal is opening branch office in Varna

We are pleased to announce that as of June 2010, MHlegal will have an office in Varna, Bulgaria. This will ensure easier access to our legal services for the clients residing in Varna and the area around Varna. The contacts will be announced at the day of the official opening.

Court case against Bulgarian developer won by MHLegal

Our law office has initiated more than 10 similar cases against Bulgarian developers. The cases are at different stages and proceed with different speed, depending on the court workload. However last week we got the first court resolution. The court awarded our British client with the amount of EUR 35,000 plus expenses, penalty and interest on the awarded amount. Another client of ours also claimed his money back (almost 80,000 pounds) and we were at the middle of the court proceedings, when the defendant -developer- agreed to reimburse our client with a finished house at the Black Sea coast (act 16 included).

Processing of company re-registration documents

As the deadline for re-registration approaches, the Commercial Register is likely to suffer by greater workload. Still thousands of companies haven’t been re-registered. If they apply in the end of the year it’s likely the clerks in the Register to delay the processing of the documents. Even more, now the company documents are processed for about a week. This is to show that more employees are needed in the Commercial Register administration.

Business clusters in Bulgaria

Business clusters have been developing in Bulgaria rapidly during the recent years. The main reason is that there are many small companies and sole traders who cannot stand the competition of the big companies. The small business in Bulgaria is not protected, as the government doesn’t care about family, small and medium enterprises. Although the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency exist just for the purpose to support the small companies, they virtually do nothing.

Deadline for filing annual tax accounts

Tomorrow, 31 March 2010, is the deadline for filing the annual tax declaration of all companies registered in Bulgaria. The tax declarations have to be filed in the local office of the National Revenue Agency, in the area where the company is registered. Dormant companies also have to file nil tax declarations. There is second accountancy obligation of all Bulgarian companies. Pursuant Art. 40 para 1 point 1 of the Accountancy Act a summary of the company accounts must be announced in the Commercial Register with the Registry Agency.

Permanent residence in Bulgaria (EU member state)

The Bulgarian Immigration legislation allows foreigners who are not citizens of EU members states to obtain permanent residence directly. The ways to do that is by investing more than 1,000,000 Levs (About 500,000 Euros) or increasing the already made investment with that amount by acquiring: shares in Bulgarian public listed companies; financial instruments, issued by the state or the municipalities having their maturity date no less than 6 months; ownership over a part of assets of Bulgarian company, having at least 50% state ownership, which has become such via the privatisation procedure; shares, owned by the state or municipality in company, created pursuant the the Privatisation Act; Bulgarian Intellectual property - items protected by Bulgarian patent, protected inventions, trade marks, industrial design etc.

Internet Gambling License

The Bulgarian legislation currently does not allow issuing of Internet gambling licenses. However, an amendment to the Gambling Act is submitted to the Bulgaria Parliament. The new clauses of the Gambling Act will allow Bulgarian and foreign companies to obtain Internet gambling license. Some of the new license requirements will be: all servers and electronic equipment has to be located physically in Bulgaria at least one of the servers which receives the traffic data over the Internet, has to possess domain in .

Old companies have to re-register by the end of this year

Those of you who have companies registered before 1 Jan 2008 and haven’t done the re-registration, need to hurry. The Commercial Register Act regulates the deadline for re-registration is 31 Dec 2010. If you fail to re-register on time, your company will be liquidated by the court and official state liquidator will be appointed. The consequence of this will be that your company’s assets will be sold on public tender and the liquidator’s salary will be paid out of that assets.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all readers of this blog. I will do my best to inform you of the latest trends and legal changes in the Bulgarian legislation. As a lawyer, I will try to give you best advice for your particular case.