The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) notified the draft Valuers Registration and Governance Regulations in April 2016 and placed them on its website to obtain public comments. The regulations have been developed under the existing provisions of Sections 20 and 40 of the SECP Act, 1997, which empowers the Commission to make regulations. The Commission in its meeting on July 01, 2016, decided to issue these regulations under the amended provisions of Section 20 of the SECP Act, which give specific powers to the Commission to constitute a regulatory framework for oversight of the professional valuers providing services relating to valuation of assets of the companies.
The draft regulations are aimed at regulating and supervising of the work of professional valuers. They provide for the registration mechanism of professional valuers in the form of company, on five specialized valuation panels, for which the prescribed eligibility and fit-and-proper criteria have been defined. The regulations elaborate on quality assurance framework whereby a quality assurance board would be set up to supervise and rate to registered valuers through review of their valuation services. High ethical standards and code of conduct have been prescribed for the sponsors, directors and senior management officers of valuations companies. The Commission also considered the comments/proposals received from various institutions, and decided to hold a roundtable, and conclude the process of consultation with the public and relevant stakeholders before notifying these regulations by the end of July 2016.-PR