Central Bank of Russia tightens Lombard List eligibility for bonds with restricted disclosure or fewer than two A- level credit ratings

The Central Bank of Russia has amended its Lombard List procedure to restrict the eligibility of bonds whose issuers or guarantors limit information disclosure, and to condition continued inclusion on having at least two sufficiently high credit ratings from different Russian rating agencies. Bonds will not be included in the Lombard List if an issuer or guarantor limits disclosure more than permitted under applicable federal laws and related legal acts and Central Bank of Russia regulations. Where such excessive restrictions are identified, the central bank will suspend repo and lending operations involving the bonds until the violations are eliminated, and will exclude the bonds from the Lombard List if the violations are not remedied within three months of the relevant orders being sent. Separately, bonds will be excluded if the issuer or guarantor limits disclosure to the extent permitted by the legal framework but the bond issue, issuer, or guarantor has fewer than two credit ratings not below A-(RU) / ruA- / A-.ru / ?-|ru| assigned by different agencies among ACRA, Expert RA, NCR and NRA. The exclusion and suspension conditions do not apply to non-disclosure of information on persons able to directly or indirectly dispose of shares (stakes) in the issuer’s or guarantor’s authorised capital, their beneficial owners and management bodies, or to information contained in the register of DOM.RF mortgage-backed bonds. The changes take effect upon publication on the Central Bank of Russia website.