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Cuba grants new legal guarantees to foreign investors (+Photo)

Havana, Oct 24.- Cuba announced two legal regulations that grant more guarantees to business with foreign capital and prevent damages to investors.

 

Law-decree 14, approved by the Council of States in September 2020 and published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette No. 58, provides confidence and security to foreign investors through mortgage and pledge.

According to Maria del Carmen March, legal director at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (MINCEX), the new decree-law authorizes business with foreign capital and the pledge of assets and rights after being approved by the Council of Ministers.

The expert told a press conference that the new law-decree also authorizes the mortgage on immovable property or royalties in sectors of special economic interest, after express approval by the top government body.

Likewise, the regulation establishes that the State has the preferential right to acquire mortgage securities,’ March noted.

For its part, Decree-law 15, published in the same issue of the Official Gazette, establishes a legal framework to use a trust as a guarantee.

That way, by virtue of a written contract, a natural or legal person can transfer the custody of assets or the ownership of some rights to a financial institution, according to Central Bank of Cuba Secretary Marta Lusson.

In that case, it also has to be approved by the Council of Ministers or the Council of State, she added.

Those kinds of actions already existed in Cuba’s legislation, but now they extend the possibility to be used in other economic sectors to support foreign investments, the officials agreed.

(Prensa Latina)