Posted on 05/17/2005 6:00:19 PM PDT by white trash redneck
SPANISH business leaders are being told they have to declare any illicit love affairs - to the stock market.
In an attempt to crack down on insider trading, the directors of companies quoted on Spain’s stock exchange will have to come clean, on a twice-yearly basis, about anyone with whom they are having an "affectionate relationship".
In July, legislation will be brought in by the regulatory body, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), to try to clean up the image of Spanish business practices.
Privileged information about share prices, takeovers and company results is frequently leaked from the companies involved, and the CNMV hopes the government-backed move will help to make dealings more transparent.
Company directors must also provide information about their wives or husbands and family, but it is the idea of a "lovers’ register" - in which bosses could have to admit to having affairs or out themselves as gay - which has sparked reactions ranging from disbelief to fury among businessmen.
Ricard Fornesa, the president of the huge La Caixa savings bank, described the legislation as "laughable".
A spokesman for another leading Spanish financial house - who would not be named - was outraged, saying: "If I had a lover, which I don’t, would they expect me to admit it? What next? I get a call from someone who has found out saying ‘pay me money or I tell your wife’. It’s stupid and it’s ludicrous."
One corporate lawyer said it was unlikely that senior executives would willingly provide the authorities with the names of their lovers, and the Spanish press has poured scorn on the move. The newspaper El Mundo denounced what it referred to as an "impossible stock market inquisition".
The paper asked: "Where is this register of partners and lovers to be? What constitutional precept allows such an invasion of privacy?"
The CNMV said it was following the Socialist government’s guidelines in introducing the requirements. Gay affairs were being included in order to deal with "new forms of human relationships".
The modernisation process began with the previous, right-wing administration, which encouraged the acceptance of same-sex relationships in business in the 2003 Law of Transparency.
A CNMV spokesman said there were no guidelines yet as to how the ruling would be enforced and he admitted it might prove almost impossible to regulate people’s personal affairs.
I certainly didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
Actually, this doesn't sound so bad. As an accountant, I think this is much, much better than Sarbanes-Oxley. If only this, huh?
Does this include prostitutes? What about those they visit in foreign counties?
You vote communists into power and they will do what they can to taint the public's perception of the business world.
Mandatory proctoscopies are next.
;-)
Just make it quick and get it over with and return me to a life without idiots for another six months.
Nope. This is by the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV). That roughly translates to the "National Commission for Market Valuation."
If they wanted to make sure business owners reported their prostitution relationships, they'd have gone to the Comisión Nacional Del Hotel.
Get it? Ho-tell?
Aw, whaddya know from funny...
That's hilarious!
Could you imagine BJ Clinton's list?
What if you don't sleep? Do quickies have to be listed too?
Is the Cowboy Club still open in Madrid??
Would be like connect-the-dots on a High Definition TV.
Imagine, standard SEC thinking. Ardent jackboots that they are, they follow the trail from a CEO to an "affectionate partner", who happens to be quite "affectionate". Do they, calculate the insider trading from the original seminal moment, and impute avoided losses to that improved knowledge, and then follow it to each additional partner, and then to each partner of those partners?...
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