Also, a law imposing restrictions on offshore companies to acquire shares and assets in different fields including the media sector, entered into force in 2014.
Despite the existence of these legal transparency obligations, there are several problems concerning, on one side the application of the rules, on the other, the requirements themselves, which are not enough effective in ensuring the disclosure of the actual owners.
Moreover, according to experts, the law should not be limited to obligations concerning the ownership, but expand its scope to examine the origin of funding of media outlets as well.
According to expert Ognyanova, there are several ways of circumventing the legal requirements: one example is the case of Krasikir Gergov, a former agent of the Communist-era State Security services and owner of advertising agencies that, while acting in the guise of a “consultant”, actually had a share of the ownership and a contract allowing him to exercise control over the newsroom of a media outlet in Bulgaria.
This situation led to an article in the magazine Capital Weekly in January 2012 that revealed that many authorities in Bulgaria are not familiar with their obligations under the law.
[6] A study conducted in 2014 shows that a series of important ownership changes in the Bulgarian media system that occurred in that year had not been recorded as it should have been done.
[4] There are also journalistic investigations corroborating the fact that publishers of print media fail to comply with their duty to submit the required data and no fine have been imposed to sanction this.
[6] The Bulgarian law on Access to Public Information sets forth some general requirements concerning transparency regarding management and ownership of the media.