ESG – Environmental, social and governance

The leg­al frame­work for the pos­sible mod­el of car­bon reg­u­la­tion in Rus­sia has been es­tab­lished in a Fed­er­al Law* ad­op­ted on 6 March 2022 (the “Law”). This mod­el will be tested dur­ing the ex­per­i­ment in the Sakhal­in Re­gion from 1 Septem­ber 2022 to 31 Decem­ber 2028.The main goal of the ex­per­i­ment is to achieve car­bon neut­ral­ity in Sakhal­in by the end of 2025.The ap­proved car­bon man­age­ment mod­el will likely be ex­ten­ded to oth­er re­gions of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion if the ex­per­i­ment proves suc­cess­ful.Main pro­vi­sions of the LawThe Law in­tro­duces quotas for green­house gas emis­sions as a new in­stru­ment for car­bon reg­u­la­tion and as the basis of the ex­per­i­ment.A quota is defined as a cer­tain amount of al­low­able green­house gas emis­sions an­nu­ally set by the com­pet­ent body for reg­u­lated com­pan­ies, based on an ap­proved meth­od­o­logy, to achieve car­bon neut­ral­ity. The re­gion­al gov­ern­ment will ap­prove the list of such com­pan­ies.If a com­pany ex­ceeds the es­tab­lished quota, it will be charged at rates that the Rus­si­an gov­ern­ment will ap­prove. On the con­trary, if the quota for the ac­count­ing year is met, units of ful­fil­ment of the quota in an amount cor­res­pond­ing to the dif­fer­ence between the es­tab­lished quota and the ac­tu­al mass of green­house gas emis­sions will be cred­ited to the ac­count of the or­gan­isa­tion in a spe­cial re­gister.Sub­sequently, the com­pany may cred­it such im­ple­ment­a­tion units to its ac­count in the re­gister to meet its as­signed quota or the com­pany may trans­fer them to an­oth­er en­tity for which they are ne­ces­sary to meet its own quota. In this way, the pre­requis­ites for the emer­gence of a mar­ket for trad­ing in quota im­ple­ment­a­tion units are cre­ated.In ad­di­tion to quotas, the Law en­vis­ages oth­er mech­an­isms to reg­u­late emis­sions and ab­sorp­tion of green­house gases:• An in­vent­ory of emis­sions will be made once a year at the re­gion­al level.• Reg­u­lated or­gan­isa­tions will have to con­duct man­dat­ory car­bon re­port­ing.• Eco­nom­ic and fin­an­cial mech­an­isms that stim­u­late emis­sion re­duc­tions will be es­tab­lished. They may be real­ised in the form of tax cred­its for reg­u­lated or­gan­isa­tions or sub­sidies for the re­im­burse­ment of pro­duc­tion costs.Com­mentsIn con­trast to the pre­vi­ously ad­op­ted fed­er­al law on lim­it­ing green­house gas emis­sions (which we re­por­ted on earli­er), the Law stip­u­lates stricter reg­u­la­tion of green­house gas emis­sions and ab­sorp­tion in the ex­per­i­ment­al area through quotas.Even though im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions provided for by the Law in fur­ther­ance of its pro­vi­sions have yet to be en­acted, the rules the Law cre­ates are already a bold step for­ward in the cli­mate-change agenda.However, in the cur­rent cir­cum­stances, the suc­cess­ful im­ple­ment­a­tion of the ex­per­i­ment with­in the an­nounced time­frame raises le­git­im­ate con­cerns. It is very likely that, by the time the Law comes in­to force in Septem­ber 2022, the plans for the ex­per­i­ment will have to be sub­stan­tially re­vised due to the need to real­loc­ate budget­ary re­sources for oth­er needs.* In Rus­si­anCo-au­thored by Elena Foteeva, Paralegal in Real Es­tate.

On 22 March 2022, Pavel Krashe­n­in­nikov, Head of the State-build­ing and Le­gis­la­tion Com­mit­tee of the Rus­si­an State Duma, sub­mit­ted a bill*, which makes it pos­sible to ter­min­ate and sus­pend ob­lig­a­tions due to sanc­tions im­posed on Rus­sia. The bill also es­tab­lishes the pos­sib­il­ity for parties to be re­leased from li­ab­il­ity for breach of con­tract.The fol­low­ing de­scribes this le­gis­lat­ive ini­ti­at­ive in more de­tail:Ter­min­a­tion of ob­lig­a­tion­sAc­cord­ing to the bill, an ob­lig­a­tion is ter­min­ated in full or in part if its per­form­ance “ob­ject­ively be­comes defin­it­ively im­possible” “in the con­text of ‘un­friendly’ ac­tions of for­eign states and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions as­so­ci­ated with the im­pos­i­tion of re­strict­ive meas­ures” against Rus­si­an in­di­vidu­als and com­pan­ies (i.e. for­eign sanc­tions).Ex­emp­tion of li­ab­il­ity for breach of ob­lig­a­tion­sThe bill provides an ex­emp­tion from li­ab­il­ity for a breach of ob­lig­a­tion for a per­son who proves that prop­er per­form­ance has “ob­ject­ively proved to be tem­por­ar­ily im­possible” in the con­text of for­eign sanc­tions. In this case, the ob­lig­a­tions se­cur­ing the de­faul­ted trans­ac­tion are also un­en­force­able un­less the parties agree oth­er­wise after the bill comes in­to force.Ter­min­a­tion of con­tractThe bill in­tro­duces the right to uni­lat­er­ally ter­min­ate a con­tract if the oth­er party to the con­tract has not per­formed, or per­formed im­prop­erly, its ob­lig­a­tion be­cause such per­form­ance is tem­por­ar­ily im­possible in the con­text of sanc­tions. The party au­thor­ised to do so must give a ter­min­a­tion no­tice to the oth­er party with­in a reas­on­able time. The col­lat­er­al se­cur­ing the ob­lig­a­tions of the parties, which shall sur­vive the uni­lat­er­al ter­min­a­tion of the con­tract or are con­nec­ted with the ter­min­a­tion, shall con­tin­ue to ex­ist, un­less oth­er­wise provided for by law or the con­tract.Se­cur­ity de­positThe bill sub­stan­tially mod­i­fies the treat­ment of se­cur­ity pay­ments.  Un­der this draft law, after 23 Feb­ru­ary 2022, the parties may enter in­to an agree­ment for a se­cur­ity pay­ment to se­cure oth­er ob­lig­a­tions. The pay­ment could con­sist of the de­pos­it of shares, bonds, oth­er se­cur­it­ies or gen­er­ic items.Re­pay­ment by Rus­si­an joint-stock com­pan­ies of loans is­sued by their for­eign con­trolling per­son­sThe bill en­titles Rus­si­an joint-stock com­pan­ies, in­stead of re­pay­ing a loan to lenders who are for­eign con­trolling per­sons of such com­pan­ies, to place ad­di­tion­al shares of a cer­tain cat­egory or type in fa­vour of such lenders. At the same time, joint-stock com­pan­ies are al­lowed to is­sue pref­er­en­tial shares whose nom­in­al value may ex­ceed 25% of the share cap­it­al.The bill does not re­quire proof of a caus­al link between the im­pos­i­tion of sanc­tions and the de­cision to place ad­di­tion­al shares in fa­vour of a lender in­stead of re­pay­ing the loan and pay­ing in­terest on it.Pro­tec­tion not for al­lAc­cord­ing to the bill, the above sup­port meas­ures do not ap­ply to per­sons who “con­trib­uted to the ‘un­friendly’ ac­tions of for­eign states and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions re­lated to the im­pos­i­tion of re­strict­ive meas­ures” against Rus­si­an in­di­vidu­als and or­gan­isa­tions. The bill does not cla­ri­fy ex­actly what is meant by “con­trib­ut­ing”.Let­ter from the Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dustry of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion­In con­nec­tion with the bill, the Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dustry of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion has sus­pen­ded its re­view of ap­plic­a­tions for the is­su­ance of find­ings of force ma­jeure un­der con­tracts that were con­cluded with­in the frame­work of do­mest­ic eco­nom­ic activ­ity in con­nec­tion with sanc­tions on for­eign com­pon­ents and equip­ment (Let­ter No. PR/0181* of the Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dustry of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion dated 22 March 2022).* In Rus­si­an

On Oc­to­ber 26, 2021 the Franco-Rus­si­an Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dustry (CCI France Russie), Nor­nick­el and the Na­tion­al Coun­cil on Cor­por­ate Gov­ernance with the sup­port of the French Em­bassy in Rus­sia held an ESG con­fer­ence. French and Rus­si­an reg­u­lat­ors, fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions and in­dus­tri­al cor­por­a­tions dis­cussed the pro­spects and chal­lenges of the new ESG real­ity. The event brought to­geth­er ex­perts from high-pro­file com­pan­ies and or­gan­isa­tions in­clud­ing France Dip­lo­matie, the Bank of Rus­sia, VEB.RF, Mo­scow Ex­change, Ros­bank, Gazprom­bank, Boiron, Schneider Elec­tric, La­farge­Holcim, Saint-Gobain, etc.Olga Odint­sova, Coun­sel and Head of New Busi­nesses and Product De­vel­op­ment at CMS Rus­sia, mod­er­ated a ses­sion on en­vir­on­ment­al re­spons­ib­il­ity and busi­ness ef­fi­ciency and a ses­sion on ESG rank­ings in Rus­sia and France.The En­vir­on­ment­al, So­cial & Cor­por­ate Gov­ernance agenda has firmly rooted in the glob­al eco­nomy to elim­in­ate in­equal­ity and en­sure ef­fi­cient use of nat­ur­al re­sources. Green com­pan­ies that com­ply with ESG cri­ter­ia get easi­er ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al in­vest­ments, while busi­nesses not com­mit­ted to ESG prin­ciples are find­ing it in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult to get ac­cess to such in­vest­ments. Read the full event re­port on the web­site of the Franco-Rus­si­an Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dustry. 

This is the new edi­tion of the CMS Do­ing busi­ness in Rus­sia guide. 

After years of be­ing con­sidered an 'oil-and-gas coun­try', Rus­sia now has an ex­pand­ing re­new­able en­ergy sec­tor fol­low­ing a re­cent spate of for­eign in­vest­ment and the in­stall­a­tion and con­struc­tion of sev­er­al re­new­able en­ergy pro­jects.Read the Rus­sia chapter if the Re­new­able En­ergy Law Re­view 2021, pre­pared by Thomas Heidemann, Part­ner at CMS Rus­sia, and Dmitry Bog­dan­ov, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate at CMS Rus­sia. The chapter provides an over­view of the Rus­si­an reg­u­la­tions in the re­new­able en­ergy in­dustry.This art­icle was pre­pared for and first pub­lished by The Law Re­views in Au­gust 2021.

Rus­sia’s vast geo­graphy is an im­port­ant de­term­in­ant of its eco­nom­ic activ­ity. It has the world’s largest proven nat­ur­al gas re­serves and acts as the largest ex­port­er of nat­ur­al gas. It is also the second-largest ex­port­er of pet­ro­leum. Enorm­ous en­ergy re­sources en­able pro­du­cers to gen­er­ate elec­tri­city in thermal, hy­dro and nuc­le­ar power plants and by us­ing gas, oil and coal.Read the Rus­sia Chapter of the En­ergy Reg­u­la­tion and Mar­kets Re­view 2021, pre­pared by Thomas Heidemann, Part­ner at CMS Rus­sia, and Dmitry Bog­dan­ov, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate at CMS Rus­sia. The chapter provides an over­view of the Rus­si­an reg­u­la­tions in the en­ergy in­dustry, in­clud­ing elec­tri­city sec­tor, oil and gas sec­tor, re­new­able en­ergy and en­ergy ef­fi­ciency.This art­icle was pre­pared for and first pub­lished by The Law Re­views in June 2021.

The in­fra­struc­ture mar­ket has re­mained re­si­li­ent in the face of COV­ID-19. The CMS In­fra­struc­ture In­dex has ranked 50 coun­tries by their at­tract­ive­ness for in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment and it paints a very pos­it­ive pic­ture. Singa­pore tops the lead­er board, bolstered by the un­veil­ing of its Green Plan 2030 which aims to ad­vance sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and re­duce the coun­try’s car­bon foot­print. There are big spend­ing plans in every re­gion as gov­ern­ments seek to close in­fra­struc­ture gaps, re­cov­er from the pan­dem­ic and stim­u­late their eco­nom­ies.   Please click through the re­port or down­load the pdf ver­sion at the bot­tom of this page.

CMS has ad­vised PJSC Uralkali on its de­but $1.25bn sus­tain­ab­il­ity-linked pre-ex­port fin­ance fa­cil­ity ar­ranged by, among oth­ers, COM­MERZBANK CRÉDIT AG­RI­COLE COR­POR­ATE & IN­VEST­MENT BANK, ING BANK, SO­CI­ETE...

In this chapter of Do­ing busi­ness in Rus­sia, we dis­cuss the fol­low­ing as­pects of cli­mate change is­sues in the coun­try: en­vir­on­ment­al reg­u­la­tions, en­ergy ef­fi­ciency re­quire­ments and the re­new­ables sec­tor.