On 25 April, Majid Eshghi, the head of the Stock Exchange Market, announced that a new mechanism is being launched whereby shareholders could electronically present their shares as security. The importance of this type of security is arisen from the fact that the process of pledging the physical assets is usually complex and time consuming. Conversely, stock securities would make the process of receiving loan and pledging before courts much easier and quicker.
Mahmoud Hassanlou, Deputy Minister of Technology and Innovation Development of the Central Depository Company pointed out the method in which shares would be held as securities. According to his statements, the depository company provides information to the banks and the shareholder must refer to the bank application to take the actions related to stock security and receive a loan. With OTP (disposable) SMS, the shareholder’s Sejam has been authenticated and if OTP is entered correctly, the shareholder's share securities will be displayed in the bank application. Afterwards, the shareholder could select its intended shares and enter the number of shares it seeks to pledge.
Consequently, the Central Bank announced the instructions for granting facilities in small amounts up to 200 million Tomans and exchange and non-exchange securities, including stocks, bonds, tangible property and SIM cards. These instructions have resulted from the efforts made by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance and the Stock Exchange Organization in order to help investors to receive facilities.
Each year on April 26, the Center for Intellectual Property in the Real Estate Registration Organization of Iran, which is also the representative of the World Intellectual Property Organization in Iran, celebrates the world Intellectual Property day. As a celebration of this day, the head of the center recently stated that it is the duty of this center to promote and raise public awareness of IP rights. In order to meet this goal, a summer school concerning intellectual property will be held in partnership with one of top universities in the country to educate relevant sector of the public. The center is also willing to hold a national ceremony to honor elites, inventors, industrial designers for the first time.
On this very day, Seyed Mohammad Ali Mirtaheri, the head of the Center for Intellectual Property, emphasized on the importance of geographical indications as means of protecting traditional arts and handicrafts. According to his statements, currently there have been collaborations with Sweden in order to register geographical indications of Iran including Zanjan’s knife, Nain’s carpet and Saveh’s pomegranate.
On 2 May 2022, the deputy head of the Real Estate and Deeds Registration Organization announced that registering all kinds of contracts by the notary publics is only possible when a confirmation code is received by the applicants i.e. parties to the contract via SMS on their phones. The same procedure shall be followed by the applicants of registering official documents before notaries.
For the confirmation code to be sent to mobile numbers, the phone numbers must be registered in the name of the applicants.
This procedure will help verifying the real identity of the parties. Therefore, this electronical authentication would ensure the parties of the identity of their counterparties and their position. Thus, the risk of unauthorized transactions would be diminished.
On 7 May 2022, Enrique Mora, the deputy secretary-general of the European External Action Service visited Tehran. According to Nournews, an outlet affiliated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), “considering the EU’s role in exchanging viewpoints between Tehran and Washington, Enrique Mora’s trip to Tehran can be regarded as a new step for constructive negotiations surrounding the few but important remaining issues.” It has also been reported that in spite of US harsh sanctions and the onerous situation resulting from them in Iran, the country has remained in negotiation phase.
The talks to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), started in April 2021 but have been suspended for months. The reason behind this delay was a few disagreements between Iran and the United States on a number of limited but significant issues. The major discordance between the two countries was as a result of Iran’s request for the United States to waive its sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Besides, Iran has insisted that guaranteeing its economic benefits from a revived nuclear deal is on the table, but has not elaborated on the details.
For this request to be fulfilled, the US has stated that Iran needs to assure us concerning its regional activities, not to mention that this issue is beyond the scope of nuclear deal.
Iran is of the position that its nuclear program is peaceful, but has significantly developed since the US withdrawal from the JCPOA. However, reviving the JCPOA would considerably restrict Iran’s enrichment of nuclear materials in exchange for lifting the sanctions.
