By Omobayo Azeez
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has temporarily suspended extant rules stipulating deadline for filling of full year report to grant a 60-day extension to issuers and dealing members for filing of 2019 full year financial reports.
The bourse made this known via two separate circulars to Dealing Member Firms (DMFs) and Issuers on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, each titled “Extension of Time to File Audited Financial Statement for the Year Ended 31 December 2019”.
“Following the outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and as part of the measures taken at The Exchange to respond and reduce the business and economic impacts on the activities of DMFs, The Exchange has approved a temporary suspension of the provisions of Rule 7.4”, the circular read.
The rule, Submission of Financial and Non-Financial Reports to The Exchange, Rulebook of The Exchange, 2015 (Dealing Members’ Rules), as amended, stipulates that every dealing member shall submit to the exchange its audited financial statements, within 90 calendar days of the end of the fiscal year, and its quarterly returns within thirty 30 calendar days of the end of the quarter; and any other periodic report within the period stipulated by the exchange.
With the current situation, however, the exchange has given listed companies the liberty for what would have been tagged as late filling and without sanction.
The exchange said it understands that some of the internal governance, auditing and other processes including the engagement of external auditors to carry out the audit of DMFs, may have been disrupted due to COVID-19.
“Therefore, the exchange is granting all DMFs an additional sixty 60-day grace period for the submission of their audited financial statement for the year ended 31 December 2019, which is due for submission to the exchange on Monday, 30 March 2020.
“In order to reduce the challenges caused by the pandemic disease, the deadline for the submission of the audited financial statement for all DMFs has now been extended to Friday, 29 May 2020,” stated the circulars signed by Olufemi Shobanjo, head broker dealer regulation.
