A recent journalist research showed that a major Bulgarian newspaper publisher has changed shares ownership. The new and the old shares owner are contradictory entities, but the most interesting thing about this shares transaction is the speed that the change was registered in the Commercial register. To be absolutely objective here is an excerpt from the Internal regulations of the Commercial register:

Art. 90, para 2 (Amended - SG. 111 of 2007, in force from 01.01.2008, am. - SG. 6 of 2009, in force since 23.01.2009) The distribution of applications, requests, acts of the court,public authority and private enforcement agents for consideration by officials in the registration is performed by the information system on random selection basis.

The above mentioned shares transactions was registered in the Commercial register in only 3 days after the application was submitted there. At the same time processing of the company applications was taking about 30 days as from the moment of submission. Now, this throws a shade over the above regulations. No doubt we are facing corruption, based on high level government influence. Meanwhile all lawyers need to explain how come a company registration takes 30 days in Bulgaria….