Regulatory Framework and Market Supervision
Bulgaria's securities market is supervised by the Financial Supervision Commission (Комисия за финансов надзор, FSC), an integrated regulator covering capital markets, insurance and pensions. The legal framework rests on the Markets in Financial Instruments Act (Закон за пазарите на финансови инструменти, ZPFI), which transposes MiFID II, together with the Public Offering of Securities Act (ЗППЦК), the Market Abuse Regulation as applied domestically, and secondary FSC ordinances (наредби). The FSC licenses investment firms, approves prospectuses, and supervises trading venues. The Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) operates regulated markets, while the Central Depository (Централен депозитар) handles settlement and register functions. The Ministry of Finance and the Council of Ministers sit above the FSC in institutional terms, and the FSC cooperates with ESMA and ESAs.
Candidates must distinguish who does what: the FSC authorises and sanctions; the BSE and CCP make operating rules; the Central Depository settles. A frequent trap is confusing the FSC with the Bulgarian National Bank, which supervises banks and payment institutions but not investment firm conduct. Another trap is treating FSC ordinances as optional guidance rather than binding rules. Note also that EU regulations apply directly, while directives are transposed through ZPFI, so questions may ask which instrument creates a given obligation.
Rule of thumb: identify the actor first (regulator, venue, depository), then the instrument (law, ordinance, directly applicable EU regulation). If the question asks who may impose an administrative sanction for market conduct, the answer is the FSC, not the exchange.
Worked example: a question asks which body approves a prospectus for a public offer of shares on the BSE. The prospectus is approved by the FSC, not the exchange, which only admits instruments to trading.