Capital Market Law and Regulation
This domain tests the legal skeleton under every Iranian capital-market transaction: which body makes rules, which body supervises, what a licensed firm may and may not do, and how disclosure and enforcement work. Questions typically ask you to place an institution in the hierarchy or to name the instrument that governs a given activity.
The statutory layer
The Securities Market Law (قانون بازار اوراق بهادار), enacted in 1384 (2005), separated policy-making from supervision. The Securities and Exchange High Council (شورای عالی بورس و اوراق بهادار), chaired by the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance and composed of ministry and Central Bank representatives, approves major policies and the SEO's bylaws and appoints the SEO's board. The Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO) is the supervisor: it licenses intermediaries, approves the rulebooks of exchanges and the central depository, and enforces the law.
Delegated rules and self-regulation
Exchanges (TSE, IFB) and the Central Securities Depository are self-regulatory bodies: they admit members, set listing requirements and run market surveillance. Their rulebooks, however, take effect only with SEO approval. Below the Law sit آییننامه (bylaws) and دستورالعمل (guidelines) covering trading, membership, funds, disclosure and AML.
The supervisory toolkit
Licensing and fit-and-proper tests, capital adequacy, periodic reporting, on-site inspection, mandatory immediate disclosure of material information (اطلاعات بااهمیت), and sanctions ranging from warning and fine to suspension of activity and licence revocation, with referral to judicial authorities for criminal conduct.
Worked example
A firm wants to manage a mutual fund and also distribute the units. Reasoning: fund management requires an SEO licence as a fund manager (سبدگردان); the fund itself must be registered with the SEO; if the units are to trade on an exchange, listing approval by that exchange is needed on top. Nothing here is granted by the exchange alone.
Traps that cost marks
Treating the High Council as a day-to-day regulator; assuming exchange rulebooks are valid without SEO approval; assuming the 2005 Law covers only listed equities rather than all securities, including sukuk and fund units.