May 22 - Re-Election Of ATCOM Chairman And Board
Marc Ellul has been re-elected as Chairman. At the Annual General Meeting, held on 22nd May 2013, the membership unanimously elected their new Board for the next twelve months.
Marc Ellul was re-elected as the Chairman, Nick Cruz as Deputy Chairman, Subash Malkani as the Treasurer, Mark Bridge as Secretary and Kyra Romano-Scott, Andrew Gardner, Nick Pitaluga, Ian Felice and Eugenie Cottrell as Board members.
In his Chairman’s report, Marc Ellul reported that ATCOM now had its highest ever number of members representing close to 95% of the industry employing around 1,000 people.
He highlighted that the biggest challenge faced by ATCOM during the course of the year had undoubtedly been the renewal of the contract to run Companies House (recently been extended by Government on 25th April 2013). He and the Deputy Chairman had met with a representative of Companies House and with the Chief Minister on this matter between October 2012 and January 2013. Certain announcements were made as to increased fees and heavy penalties for the late filing of documents without consultation with ATCOM. In one case, these would have taken effect immediately and in another with just three weeks’ notice. This was unwelcome news as it would not have given the industry the necessary time to notify its clients and manage the transition properly.
Happily, the Chairman and Deputy were able meet with the Chief Minister, who understood the concerns of the industry, and were able to negotiate acceptable terms and time-frames for the implementation of the new fees and penalties. ATCOM also secured an important commitment from the Chief Minister to be consulted when Government conducted periodic performance reviews of the services being provided by Companies House. The Chief Minister wrote to the Chairman on 20th May 2103 to this effect.
The Chairman also referred to other matters where ATCOM had been active including: the Companies Act reform proposals (driven by himself as Chairman of the Gibraltar Finance Centre Council (“GFCC”) company law reform committee) which had been accepted by Government with a new Act drafted and a Bill to be published shortly; the Chairman and Deputy holding quarterly meetings with the Financial Services Commission (“FSC”) and attending monthly meetings of the GFCC; their continued involvement in the promotion of Gibraltar as a modern compliant EU finance centre; presenting to Government, with the support of the FSC and the GFCC, draft regulations in order to allow an alternative method of holding money in a “Customer Safeguard Account” and participating in other finance centre committees namely, the Double Tax Treaty and FACTA working groups.
