After two postponements, a corruption row and profuse criticism from the European Commission, Bulgaria’s single company register is now fully operational.

The corruption row into the  project, though it was speedily resolved, cost the resignation of the country’s deputy justice minister Ana Karaivanova.

As of January 2, the first working day of the year, all companies are able to register or re-register using e-forms at www.brra.bg or through paper forms in 27 offices across the country.

Those opting to hand in company papers in person can find the address of the nearest office at www.registryagency.bg.

The new register, to operate under the umbrella of the Registry Agency (RA), will minimise the possibilities of registering fake companies as well as of company name overlap, a phenomenon existing to date because of concurrent registration at regional registry offices.

The name overlap problem is now solved, according to RA chief executive Emil Stankov, because the new system provides for digital connectivity across RA offices throughout the country and, respectively, the cross-check for name overlap.

The new register will bring, among other advantages, more transparency and speed to the company registration process, Stankov said at a news conference days before the close of year 2007.

The fake company problem, for its part, will be resolved through re-registration. Owners of all existing firms will be obliged to renew their registration within a three-year period, according to Stankov. The procedure will be free of charge and information about ways to carry it out will be provided by the company departments in the court, RA deputy head Daniela Miteva said.

Once an existing company owner applies for registration renewal, the RA will automatically check for name overlap. If the name belongs to one or two more companies, the agency will dispatch a letter to inform about the overlap.

The said entities need to change their names within a two-month deadline. If they fail to do so, the agency will automatically add the town of registration to their name. For example, if the name of the companies is Svetlina and their place of registration is Sofia and Haskovo, they will, respectively, be named Svetlina-Sofia and Svetlina-Haskovo, the agency officials said.

The site of the agency has already uploaded a list with all company name overlaps. The list is drawn from data from the Supreme Judicial Court, valid as of December 14 2007.

If a company owner fails to register within the three-year period, the company will be erased from the register.

Whenever a physical or a juridical person decides for e-registration of a new company, s/he may do so at www.brra.bg. The procedure takes six to seven minutes at most and follows a step-wise approach. Detailed instructions guide the registrant through each step of the process.

An innovation the system brings is the entry-number generation process. The entry number includes information about the year, month, date, hour, minute and second of registration. Hence, no two companies can register within a single second. Therefore, if two company registrants happen to submit a registration form within a single second, the applications form a “queue” and the choice is randomised.

The functionality of the register’s site also provides for change of company details, Ivailo Filipov, project manager for the company register, said.

The pilot implementation of the single information system, which spanned three months across seven towns in the country, resulted in the receipt of 7000 company registration forms. All have already been processed, Miteva said.