Following measures will be implemented with effect from 11th March 2010, in relation to foreign exchange transactions in Sri Lanka, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka announced today 8th March 2010: 1. The following categories of resident Sri Lankans will be permitted to open and maintain bank accounts abroad: - Persons earning foreign exchange from investments abroad as approved by the Central Bank, - Persons engaged in providing international professional services in Sri Lanka or abroad, - Persons engaged in any occupation abroad, - Persons who have proceeded outside Sri Lanka for education and/or for medical treatment, and - Exporters of goods. 2. Forward contracts in foreign currency to cover foreign exchange transactions related to trade in goods and services, remittances and approved foreign lending and borrowings, will be permitted. 3. The present 100% margin deposit requirement against advance payments on the invoice value of selected items to be imported, will be removed. 4. The suspension on the pre-payment of import bills will be lifted. 5. The existing different investment accounts, namely Share Investment External Rupee Accounts (SIERA), Treasury Bond Investment External Rupee Accounts (TIERA), Treasury Bill Investment External Rupee Accounts (TIERA-2), and Treasury Bill/Bond Investment External Rupee Accounts – Deshabhimani (TIERA -D) maintained by non-residents in commercial banks will be permitted to be unified. The unified account will be renamed as Securities Investment Account (SIA). The Central Bank is of the view that the relaxation of the above specific exchange controls would contribute to further improve investor confidence and stabilize the foreign exchange market, thereby paving the way to further integrate the Sri Lankan economy with the global economy.

July 16 2009 Depositors of a collapsed Sri Lankan financial firm should seek its liquidation under civil law to realize assets while criminal proceedings may put pressure on directors surrender other assets, a senior lawyer has said. "If you try to use the criminal process as the primary means, then you are going to lose focus on realizing as much as possible from the assets of the company," says Naomal Goonewardene, a senior partner at Nithya Partners, a corporate law firm. "I think the civil process has not been utilized to the extent to which it should have been utilized." Gunewardene is advising clients who put money in Golden Key Credit Card Company, a member of Sri Lanka's Ceylinco group that collapsed late last year, triggering a run on other companies in the group. Quick Action Administrators, liquidators and receivers can be appointed under the islands revamped company law to deal with situations when firms don't have assets to settle all their liabilities. Depositors of some Ceylinco group firms have filed criminal changes to recover capital and interest and also petitioned the Supreme Court but none have sought the firm's liquidation. "The criminal process is about putting pressure for people to bring back money voluntarily and to maybe give up personal assets voluntarily to increase the pool of assets," says Goonewardene. "But in my view there is a limit to what could be realized and in my view that's not going to be a substantial realization." While Golden Key Credit Card Company owes 26 billion rupees, two other troubled Ceylinco firms the F&G group - which includes a licensed finance company - and Ceylinco Shriram are also struggling to repay depositors. Analysts estimate deposits at these firms to top 40 billion rupees. "If there is a liquidation process then there is a responsibility to court of that liquidator carrying out asset realizations in a proper manner," says Goonewardene. "Secondly somebody responsible is in charge." Gunewardene was also appointed to the board of Ceylinco controlled Seylan Bank to stabilize its operations after the Golden Key triggered a run. Source – Lanka Business On Line LBO "What has happened is the directors have resigned or are unavailable or in prison. So there is no direction in any of those companies in terms of the realization at all," he says. Directors of top Ceylinco firms, including chairman Lalith Kotelawala, are now in remand custody. The Supreme Court has asked the Central bank to help recover Golden Key assets. As part of the process on July 10, the Central Bank asked directors of troubled Ceylinco firms to refrain from mortgaging assets or transferring private assets to others. Goonewardene says a straight jacket approach to troubled firm asset disposals isn't the way forward. Time Value He says collections on financial assets like loans and credit card receivables outstanding have to be maintained at high levels. "You can actually sell these portfolios and recover money and a profit up-front because they would have been granted at higher interest rates." Property and long term investments like schools and a hospital, he says, can be liquidated over time. The group also has service firms with distributorships, which have to be managed well up to the sale. "So I think different types of assets need different approaches. Property is the one on which you have the most leeway," says Goonewardene, who is also a qualified accountant and financial analyst. "Immediate action is needed on other assets, if not a lot of value will be lost quite fast." He points out; there is an obligation on directors to settle all unsecured creditors equally and fairly in a civil law case filed under the island's company law. If depositors get even a part of their money back quickly they can re-invest their assets elsewhere and get a return. Delays will simply increase losses. Source – Lanka Business On Line LBO

Computer Crimes Act in operation The Computer Crimes Act has been brought into operation with effect from 15th July 2008, by an order made under Section 1 by the Minister of Justice and Law Reforms vide Gazette Extraordinary No. 1559/41 dated 25th July 2008. Computer crime generally refers to criminal activity where a computer or network is the source, tool, target, or place of a crime. These categories are not exclusive and many activities can be characterized as falling in one or more category. Additionally, although the terms computer crime or cybercrime are more properly restricted to describing criminal activity in which the computer or network is a necessary part of the crime, these terms are also sometimes used to include traditional crimes, such as fraud, theft, blackmail, forgery, and embezzlement, in which computers or networks are used to facilitate the illicit activity. Cyber crime is also a major issue these days in the world as many people are hacking into the computer systems. Computer crime can broadly be defined as criminal activity involving an information technology infrastructure, including illegal access (unauthorized access), illegal interception (by technical means of non-public transmissions of computer data to, from or within a computer system), data interference (unauthorized damaging, deletion, deterioration, alteration or suppression of computer data), systems interference (interfering with the functioning of a computer system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering or suppressing computer data), misuse of devices, forgery (ID theft), and electronic fraud. Source : Wikipedia encyclopedia

Effective from 2nd June 2008, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka further liberalized acceptance of deposits by domestic banking units of commercial banks from foreigners introducing a new scheme, Foreign Investment Deposit Accounts (FIDA). Citizens of foreign states, Sri Lankan citizens resident outside Sri Lanka, corporate bodies incorporated outside Sri Lanka and foreign institutional investors such as country funds, mutual funds and regional funds are permitted [by the Central Bank] to make investments in savings and time deposits in designated foreign currencies or in Rupees with commercial banks. Conditions stipulated by the Central Bank requires that a deposit account should maintain a minimum balance of at least US$ 10,000 or its equivalent and total foreign deposits accepted under this scheme do not exceed 20% of total deposit liabilities of the domestic banking unit.

Legal reforms are to be introduced to the Credit Information Bureau of Sri Lanka Act granting extensive powers to the Bureau. It is learnt that the relevant Bill has been already presented to Parliament The CRIB presently provides information reports on borrowers to limited lending institutions who are its member organizations. Proposed amendments are intended to expand the scope of its services to many other lending institutions and also to retail vendors who grants easy payment schemes such as hire purchase, utility providers such as telecom service providers and even to Government institutions. Further the amendments are aimed at providing value added service such as fraud prevention, e-alerts and analytical reports. More importantly the CRIB services will be extended to any individual by way of self inquiry report. CRIB will also be empowered to collect data on returned cheques and function as the filing office for secured transactions under the proposed Securitization law. Once the new provisions are enacted it is believed that it will help reducing the default rate on loans and other credit facilities including Credit Card defaults resulting reduction of cost of lending . This will benefit the borrower in turn to have access to low cost borrowing. CRIB was established under Credit Information Bureau Act No 18 of 1990 as amended by act No 8 of 1995. CRIB is a public-private partnership, with the Central Bank holding majority of equity stake while the rest is divided among lending institutions mostly regulated by the Central Bank. CRIB currently has 92 shareholders, including all licensed commercial banks, specialized banks, finance companies, leasing companies, and the central bank

Central Bank of Sri Lanka has relaxed the exchange control rules for emigrants with effect from July 2, 2008 as a policy initiatives designed to promote international investor confidence, secure comparative advantages by moving to global financial markets and to further mobilize foreign savings to address the country’s domestic savings-investment gap. This is the fourth time the Central Bank has taken such measure towards liberalization. The previous three liberalization measures that were implemented recently covered the permission to foreigners to invest in Treasury bonds, Treasury bills and commercial bank deposits within certain limits. In view of the growing world-wide opportunities for migration consequent to the mobility of labor and in consideration of the financial support provided by Sri Lankan migrants to the nation through inward remittances and investments, there has been a long-felt need to facilitate smooth migration by rationalizing rules on outward remittances permitted at the time of migration. In many countries, there are stringent rules to prevent or restrict the exportation of goods and other assets by migrating citizens. In Sri Lanka too, the amount of funds permitted for repatriation in this manner has been quite restrictive and a large part of the wealth belonging to migrants was required to be deposited in blocked accounts opened with commercial banks. Further, only the income received in Sri Lanka such as pensions, rent and interest were released through the blocked accounts to emigrants. There has also not been a procedure for the release of capital lying in the blocked accounts representing proceeds of property, etc. In this background, the Central Bank has now rationalized the rules on the repatriation of foreign exchange by emigrants as set out below. (i). Balances in all blocked accounts as at 01st of July 2008 belonging to the past emigrants may be released without any restriction. (ii). In relation to new emigrants, the following liberalized rules will apply. a. A maximum amount of foreign exchange equivalent to USD 150,000 is permitted for a family or a person not accompanying a family at the time of emigration. This will cover allowances and personal effects such as Jewellery and other goods exported. b. Any local proceeds of wealth in excess of USD 150,000 as stated (a) above is to be deposited in a blocked account carrying interest income with a commercial bank. Of such sum, a sum of USD 20,000 or its equivalent will be allowed to be remitted each year. c. Balances in blocked accounts may be utilized to meet any disbursements in Sri Lanka including investments permitted for non-residents. The measures as outlined above are expected to further promote stable capital mobility and improve investor confidence in Sri Lanka in moving towards the long-term objective of becoming a financial hub in the region. Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka

SRI LANKA TELECOM SHARE DEAL ALLOWED The sale of an equity stake in Sri Lanka Telecom held by Japan's NTT to Malaysia's Usaha Tegas group was permitted and ruled as not illegal by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. The Court directed that if a new Management Agreement is reached between the shareholders that it shall be done in transparent process through public notice. This order was delivered in a law suite initiated by a Sri Lanka parliamentarian. The Supreme Court earlier had issued interim order stopping the sale of shares by NTT to Usha Tegas group. Japan's NTT has 35.2 percent stake in Sri Lanka Telecom. NTT has a management agreement with the Sri Lanka government which is the major shareholder giving it the right to appoint a Chief Executive and Finance Manager. The Management Agreement becomes void if NTT's stake falls below 10 percent.