Between Mansouri and those dismissed from the Markets Authority.. “The Rams” is heating up!

Patricia Jallad wrote in Nidaa Al Watan newspaper: “The rams” are raging between the employees of the Financial Markets Authority and the acting governor of the Bank of Lebanon, Wassim Mansouri, who wanted to dissolve that authority and dismiss its employees. Returning to the beginning of the story, Mansouri issued a decision at the end of last December to temporarily stop the administrative work of the authority, which includes 43 employees, and to ask the employees to either submit a leave of absence, which is an unpaid leave, or submit their resignation.

Then the employees took legal action, considering that the authority was a public utility. A large number of them filed an appeal with the State Shura Council against the decision to stop work, and they won the appeal and a ruling was issued to stop the implementation of the decision.

An informed source explained to “Nidaa Al Watan” that, “Mansouri tried to circumvent the appeal decision. He retained the Board of Directors appointed by a government decree, in addition to three veils for the three members of the Board of Directors, two administrative assistants for the Board of Directors as well, and employees who had been transferred from the beginning from the Bank of Lebanon, but whose contracts were now with the Financial Markets Authority, and they are: the Security Officer, the Research and Media Officer, and the Information Officer. And the Legal Affairs Officer (all of whom are redundant. The law establishing the Authority did not mention any mention of their directorates), and three other female employees: the Assistant Secretary-General because she retracted the appeal and withdrew her name before the stay of implementation was issued, and the Assistant Legal Affairs Officer because she was the one who wrote the flawed decision being appealed on 28 December 2023, and the only employee who remained in the Financial Markets Supervision Unit because she began changing the recommendations of the former head of the Supervision Unit in implementation of the directives of a member of the Board of Directors and to serve some institutions.”

The source pointed out that “Board member Wajib Ali Qanso, who played a role when he was director of the authority’s finances, sided with Mansouri, knowing that he had submitted his resignation and then retracted it after Mansouri refused to pay him the difference in compensation that he had previously received with the members of the board.” The remaining management, in addition to the warranty compensation not yet due to them.

In addition to Qanso, there is the second executive member of the Board of Directors who supported the proposal to dismiss employees with the lowest possible salaries, and two non-executive members, one of whom benefits from two salaries instead of one per month, in addition to an education allowance that non-executives are not entitled to, and another female employee. As for the third executive member, Walid Qadri, who appealed before the Shura Council, he was the only one opposing the Board of Directors’ decision to disburse, citing the fact that the institution does not suffer from financial problems. If we grant this for the sake of argument, then an institution that suffers from a financial deficit does not dismiss its specialists and abandons the veil and aid.

The source says that one of the reasons for halting work is the scarcity of funding resources, and perhaps the closing of files such as the “Optimum” file that the Financial Markets Supervision Unit had unveiled, so he wanted to close the door through which the wind comes.

As for the situation of the Financial Markets Authority, it is not bad, as the source said, as “the annual allowances and commissions paid by the institutions licensed to the authority have been collected, especially after those institutions were satisfied with the decision to suspend implementation issued by the Shura Council to prevent the closure of the authority, so more than 700 thousand were collected.” Dollars over a period of one and a half months in exchange for maintaining the license for activities such as arranging, dealing, managing, providing advice and custody, in addition to the annual registration fee for persons registered with the Authority.

The collection is carried out according to the relevant notifications in the first quarter of each year before March, and this is what the institutions did, especially after the employees who submitted the appeal won the decision before the Shura Council. But the acting governor decided to practically re-suspend the Authority’s work after he was unable to put his contested decision into effect, and punished the appellants, as a member of the Board of Directors confirmed during one of the sessions, “All those who appealed must go away.” But the question is: Who will study the requests of those institutions that have paid their subscriptions as long as about 30 employees are dismissed, the majority of whom hold certificates and technical graduate studies in financial business and have experience in the field, and the hijab, administrative assistants, and officials of directorates without directorates are left.

The source says, “The decision to dismiss the employees by name was taken by the Board of Directors and is present in the minutes of the meeting.” The employees have not yet been officially informed, but the decision has been discussed in the corridors, each through his trusted source, because the Ministry of Labor has not yet been informed of the names a month before the official notification, as required by the rules. Based on what is being circulated, Mansouri is determined to address the Ministry of Labor about dismissing about 30 employees, but what is not known is the reason for the dismissal, which he will mention in the letter. If he insists on the lack of resources, he will clash with the existing numbers, which he knows. But if he attributes the dismissal to restructuring the authority, how can he justify dismissing technicians with certificates stipulated in Law 161 (the law establishing the authority) and leaving the surplus from those who have no role in the first place? Will he hire again? Will he rehire some of those who were fired? The most prominent question is: How will the institutions that have paid their subscriptions deal with a body that will not be able to perform its role?

The National Financial Markets Authority, as stated in Article Three of Law No. 161/2011 relating to financial markets, was established in the city of Beirut and consists of the Authority’s Council, the General Secretariat, the Financial Markets Supervision Unit, and the Sanctions Committee. In order to achieve the requirements of achieving its tasks, the “Market Authority” coordinates and cooperates with its counterparts and with the Bank of Lebanon or any other concerned authority or institution in Lebanon and abroad.

The Authority is considered a legal entity under public law and enjoys administrative and financial independence and is not subject to the rules of administration, business conduct, and oversight to which public sector institutions are subject. Its work revolves around regulating and developing the financial markets in Lebanon, reducing systemic risks in the financial markets, protecting investors from illegal or non-compliant practices, and organizing and monitoring the work of licensed stock exchanges…

The Governor of the Bank of Lebanon or his legal representative chairs the six members of the Board of Directors, who are: the Governor, the Director of the Ministry of Finance, the Director General of the Ministry of Economy, the Chairman of the Banking Control Committee, and three experts.