Lobbyists reminded to file reports or face sentence

The anti-corruption authority on Tuesday reminded registered lobbyists of their legal obligation to file to it reports of any meetings they’ve had with public functionaries over the last six-months.

In a statement, the authority recalled that registered special interest groups – lobbyists – must file the six-month report by September 15.

The six-month period covers early March to early September. The relevant law mandating lobbyists to register and to report any meetings with public functionaries, came into force on March 1 of this year.

Depending on whether they are private individuals or legal entities (companies), lobbyists file different forms – available for download on the authority’s website at www.iaac.org.cy.

The forms can be filed in print or electronic form.

If a registered lobbyist has not held any meeting with a state functionary during the reference period, they must regardless write this down on the report form, which they sign.

Anyone omitting to file the six-month report by the set deadline is guilty of a criminal offence and is liable, if found guilty by a court of law, to a fine of up to €5,000 and/or a jail sentence of up to six months.

Lobbyists must report any meeting with a public functionary where that meeting involved “a public decision-making process”.

To date, the relevant register of lobbyists contains 82 listings. The table can be found on the anti-corruption authority’s website here. It includes the banks association, the association of insurers and the Chamber of Commerce, to name but a few.

At the same time, state functionaries who have taken meetings with registered lobbyists, must likewise file reports. State functionaries must file a report within two months of any such meeting.

State functionaries include ministers, permanent secretaries of ministries and any civil servant delegated to a body or committee involved in a public decision-making process. This also applies to semi-governmental organisations as well as local government – mayors, the new-fangled district self-governance organisations and so forth.

The anti-corruption authority receives such reports from both state functionaries and lobbyists, so as to cross-reference the data and detect any discrepancies.

The authority carries out background checks on persons/companies applying to register as lobbyists. If an applicant has a prior conviction for an offence involving public corruption, they are disqualified from registering.

Sources familiar with the matter told the Cyprus Mail that, to date, no investigation has been opened into discrepancies in reporting. However, that is because the first reporting period has not expired yet.

Once the authority has examined the files and if it finds something it deems untoward, it will report it to the attorney-general’s office.

One ‘grey area’ is where lobbyists meet with state officials or functionaries in the context of ‘social functions’, which the participants may feel is unnecessary to report.

Here it’s unclear what the anti-corruption authority can do. Presumably if it receives a whistleblower report that during such a social function the participants ‘talked shop’, the authority can then initiate action.