Managing Director of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Dr Marlene Street Forrest, says the exchange is ramping up attempts to bring all listed companies and brokers into compliance regarding their audited financial reports.

Speaking on Taking Stock with Kalilah Reynolds, Street Forrest noted that the COVID-19 pandemic created a backlog at many auditing firms, which contributed to many companies delaying the publication of their results.

The Managing Director’s comments come as she admitted that investor confidence has taken a massive blow this year following several major headlines, most notably the ongoing fraud investigation at brokerage firm Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL).

Street Forrest explained that although the investment banking industry is regulated by the Financial Services Commission, the JSE still provides regulations to its member dealers and those companies must be in compliance or face consequences.

The JSE suspended SSL’s member-dealer license earlier this year.

“Currently, we have 13 member dealers and all our member dealers must submit their financial statements to us in a timely basis and there are resources dedicated to looking at that aspect of the brokers,” Street Forrest said.

“It is something that we police, and we have good responses from our member dealers when it does happen,” she added.

She emphasised that the JSE has the resources to monitor the 13 authorised brokers and the over 100 listed companies on the exchange. 

“We do [we the resources] and that is something that we do on a monthly basis,” she said.

Street Forrest explained that around 70% of the listed companies comply with submitting timely audited reports.

She explained that coming out of the pandemic, the JSE had given companies an extension to submit their audited results because the pandemic had created a backlog at auditing firms. However, the extension was removed earlier this year.

“Generally speaking there is a rule with respect to how many days after the non-submission of financial statements before the JSE takes action in terms of suspending that company and then how many days after that in actually delisting that company,” she said. 

She explained that companies usually have 90 days after the report is due to submit it before the JSE steps in. However, she did note that there may be some instances when the JSE is willing to extend grace, depending on the situation.

“Where we see anything like this, we work with the company and the company is supposed to provide us with information as to how they will address it,” Street Forrest explained.

“And there is  a particular period of time within which they are given to address those concerns,” she added.

Street Forrest said that the JSE is committed to providing investors with confidence in the system to boost confidence in the market.