On 1 Septem­ber 2022, rules for the with­draw­al from cir­cu­la­tion and de­struc­tion of fals­i­fied, de­fect­ive and coun­ter­feit med­ic­al devices will come in­to force, as per Rus­si­an Gov­ern­ment De­cree No. 145 dated 10 Feb­ru­ary 2022*.Pre­vi­ously, the with­draw­al of such med­ic­al devices was out of the reg­u­lat­ory land­scape, and the de­struc­tion pro­ced­ure was only de­scribed in gen­er­al terms.The with­draw­al of fals­i­fied, de­fect­ive and coun­ter­feit med­ic­al devices from cir­cu­la­tion im­plies that their own­er en­sures that the devices are stored in such a way that they can­not be used, op­er­ated, sold, in­stalled, com­mis­sioned, main­tained or re­paired.Fals­i­fied and de­fect­ive med­ic­al devices can be with­drawn from cir­cu­la­tion and des­troyed by de­cision of:In the case of coun­ter­feit med­ic­al devices, this de­cision can only be taken by a court.The de­cision of Roszdravn­ad­zor to with­draw and des­troy med­ic­al devices can be chal­lenged either by fil­ing a claim with a court or as an ad­min­is­trat­ive re­course (i.e. by fil­ing a com­plaint to Roszdravn­ad­zor it­self). The lat­ter means of chal­len­ging the de­cision is avail­able to the own­er of med­ic­al devices and their man­u­fac­turer. If the own­er with­draws and de­structs the fals­i­fied or de­fect­ive med­ic­al devices at its own ini­ti­at­ive, the own­er must do the fol­low­ing:Form­ally, the de­cision of the med­ic­al devices’ own­er to with­draw and des­troy the med­ic­al devices can be ex­ecuted only after 60 busi­ness days from the date of no­ti­fic­a­tion of the man­u­fac­turer and Roszdravn­ad­zor (even if there are no ob­jec­tions from the man­u­fac­turer). However, in case of ob­vi­ous falsi­fic­a­tion or de­fect­ive­ness of the med­ic­al devices, Roszdravn­ad­zor may de­cide on with­draw­al and de­struc­tion with­in a short­er peri­od of time.Once the med­ic­al devices have been des­troyed, Roszdravn­ad­zor must be no­ti­fied with­in five busi­ness days.We re­com­mend that com­pan­ies in the med­ic­al device in­dustry bring their in­tern­al doc­u­ments (stand­ard op­er­at­ing pro­ced­ures, policies, etc.) gov­ern­ing the pro­cesses for re­spond­ing to the de­tec­tion and dis­pos­al of im­prop­er products in line with the new reg­u­la­tions.* In Rus­si­an

The Rus­si­an Pres­id­ent signed Fed­er­al Law No. 311* al­low­ing the Min­istry of Health to provide the Min­istry of In­dustry and Trade with sens­it­ive in­form­a­tion from re­gis­tra­tion dossiers of medi­cines even if the in­form­a­tion is pro­tec­ted as a trade secret. The rel­ev­ant amend­ments to the Fed­er­al Laws “On Com­mer­cial Secrets”* and “On Cir­cu­la­tion of Medi­cines”* will be of­fi­cially pub­lished this week.Pre­vi­ously, in­form­a­tion con­sti­tut­ing a trade secret held by the Min­istry of Health could only be trans­ferred at the re­quest of the courts or the bod­ies re­spons­ible for in­quir­ies and pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tions.This in­form­a­tion will now be trans­ferred to the Min­istry of In­dustry and Trade with­in the frame­work of in­ter­de­part­ment­al in­ter­ac­tion, and the com­pany will be no­ti­fied of the trans­fer. The Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of In­dustry and Trade will jointly de­term­ine the de­tailed pro­ced­ure for such in­ter­ac­tion.Ac­cord­ing to the amend­ments, the in­form­a­tion can be trans­ferred to the Min­istry of In­dustry and Trade only for li­cens­ing pur­poses or to in­spect medi­cine pro­duc­tion fa­cil­it­ies. However, the new law neither es­tab­lishes con­trol mech­an­isms for such re­stric­tions nor provides any dir­ect sanc­tions for non-com­pli­ance.The above changes do not form­ally af­fect the pro­tec­tion of trade secrets and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty in Rus­sia. However, in prac­tice, the in­crease in the num­ber of re­cip­i­ents of con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion about medi­cines and pro­duc­tion pro­cesses nat­ur­ally in­creases the risk of leak­age.* In Rus­si­anCo-au­thored by Ivan Za­raiskiy, As­so­ci­ate, and Maria Volkodaeva, Paralegal in Life Sci­ences & Health­care.

Dur­ing the events of Spring 2022, there were some sig­ni­fic­ant le­gis­lat­ive changes which have not been widely re­por­ted, but are of in­terest to busi­nesses act­ive in the EAEU.One of these changes is the in­tro­duc­tion of a pro­ced­ure for trans­fer­ring a mar­ket­ing au­thor­isa­tion cer­ti­fic­ate for a medi­cine (the “Mar­ket­ing Au­thor­isa­tion”) from one com­pany to an­oth­er. Rel­ev­ant changes were in­tro­duced by EEC Coun­cil De­cision No. 36* to the Rules for Re­gis­tra­tion and Ex­am­in­a­tion of Medi­cines for Med­ic­al Use ap­proved by EEC Coun­cil De­cision No. 78*.The lack of a reg­u­lated pro­ced­ure for trans­fer­ring Mar­ket­ing Au­thor­isa­tions had been a re­cur­ring is­sue of Euras­i­an and Rus­si­an reg­u­la­tion. This com­plic­ated a vari­ety of busi­ness pro­cesses: from in­tra­group re­or­gan­isa­tion to the sale of a product line.This gap in the law has now been filled. To trans­fer a Mar­ket­ing Au­thor­isa­tion, doc­u­ments have to be provided to the rel­ev­ant au­thor­ised bod­ies to jus­ti­fy the trans­fer of the Mar­ket­ing Au­thor­isa­tion and the new hold­er’s abil­ity to ful­fil the ac­quired reg­u­lat­ory re­spons­ib­il­it­ies. In ad­di­tion, some tech­nic­al in­form­a­tion must be provided, in­clud­ing a re­vised phar­ma­covi­gil­ance sys­tem spe­cific­a­tion, up­dated in­form­a­tion for some sec­tions of the dossier and a reg­u­lat­ory doc­u­ment per­tain­ing to qual­ity.At the same time, changes in con­nec­tion with the trans­fer of a Mar­ket­ing Au­thor­isa­tion can be made sim­ul­tan­eously with the pro­ced­ure of bring­ing the re­gis­tra­tion dossier in line with the re­quire­ments of the EAEU.The new Mar­ket­ing Au­thor­isa­tion trans­fer pro­ced­ure makes the Euras­i­an Eco­nom­ic Uni­on’s reg­u­lat­ory space more open for trans­ac­tions with phar­ma­ceut­ic­al as­sets. It also eases the re­or­gan­isa­tion of Euras­i­an busi­nesses, something which has re­cently be­come of in­terest to many for­eign com­pan­ies.* In Rus­si­anCo-au­thored by Ivan Za­raiskiy, As­so­ci­ate, and Maria Volkodaeva, Paralegal in Life Sci­ences & Health­care.

In the spring of 2022, the Rus­si­an gov­ern­ment ad­op­ted De­cree No. 593* aimed at en­sur­ing the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of drug sup­ply in the con­text of for­eign sanc­tions. One of the main meas­ures in­tro­duced is the pos­sib­il­ity to tem­por­ar­ily cir­cu­late batches or series of un­re­gistered medi­cines in Rus­sia on the basis of a spe­cial per­mit from the Min­istry of Health (“Per­mit”).The nov­elty primar­ily con­cerns medi­cines that are not re­gistered in Rus­sia, are au­thor­ised for use abroad and have ana­logues re­gistered in Rus­sia with the same in­ter­na­tion­al non-pro­pri­et­ary name.However, this meas­ure could not be ap­plied for a peri­od of time due to the fact a spe­cial inter-min­is­teri­al com­mis­sion (the “Com­mis­sion”), whose de­cision on the fol­low­ing is­sues must form the basis for is­su­ing the Per­mit, had not yet been set up:de­term­in­ing wheth­er there is a short­age of a medi­cine or the risk it may oc­cur;de­term­in­ing wheth­er a batch or series of un­re­gistered medi­cine can be cir­cu­lated tem­por­ar­ily.The Reg­u­la­tion on the func­tion­ing of the Com­mis­sion was ap­proved by Or­der No. 339n of the Rus­si­an Min­istry of Health* and came in­to force on 7 June 2022. The Com­mis­sion in­cludes rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Min­istry of Health, the Fed­er­al Ser­vice for Sur­veil­lance in Health­care, the Min­istry of In­dustry and Trade, the Min­istry of Fin­ance, the Fed­er­al Anti-Mono­poly Ser­vice and the Fed­er­al Cus­toms Ser­vice. At the ini­ti­at­ive of the Com­mis­sion, mar­ket­ing au­thor­isa­tion hold­ers and Per­mit ap­plic­ants may par­ti­cip­ate in its meet­ings without the right to vote.Ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies and en­tit­ies in­volved in the cir­cu­la­tion of medi­cines (e.g. phar­ma­cies, dis­trib­ut­ors, man­u­fac­tur­ers) can be sources of in­form­a­tion on un­avail­ab­il­ity or risk of un­avail­ab­il­ity of a medi­cine.In mak­ing its de­cisions, the Com­mis­sion takes in­to ac­count factors such as the with­draw­al of mar­ket­ing au­thor­isa­tions, the risk that man­u­fac­tur­ers or sup­pli­ers of fin­ished medi­cines or raw ma­ter­i­als may dis­con­tin­ue busi­ness.The de­cision on the pos­sib­il­ity of tem­por­ary cir­cu­la­tion of a drug must be un­an­im­ous.Con­clu­sionThe Com­mis­sion is ex­pec­ted to start its activ­it­ies shortly. This will give for­eign com­pan­ies con­tinu­ing to op­er­ate on the Rus­si­an mar­ket ad­di­tion­al op­por­tun­it­ies to sup­ply medi­cines that are not re­gistered in Rus­sia to meet pa­tients’ needs.* In Rus­si­an

There are plans to:pro­hib­it man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors of med­ic­al devices from leav­ing the Rus­si­an mar­ket without at least six months pri­or no­tice; an­dper­mit the sale of for­eign medi­cines in their ori­gin­al pack­ages.Exit no­tice for man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors of med­ic­al devicesThe Rus­si­an gov­ern­ment has de­veloped and in­tro­duced to the State Duma a bill* to amend the laws “On the ba­sics of pub­lic health pro­tec­tion in the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion”, “On the cir­cu­la­tion of medi­cines” and “On the con­tract sys­tem in the pro­cure­ment of goods, works, ser­vices for state and mu­ni­cip­al needs”. To re­duce the risk of un­avail­ab­il­ity of med­ic­al devices and the threat to the life and health of cit­izens (in­clud­ing due to un­timely pro­vi­sion of med­ic­al care), there are plans to pro­hib­it man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors of med­ic­al devices from sus­pend­ing or ter­min­at­ing the pro­duc­tion of med­ic­al devices or their im­port in­to Rus­sia without giv­ing the Rus­si­an Min­istry of Health no less than six months’ no­tice.Sale of for­eign medi­cines in their ori­gin­al pack­agesIt is pro­posed to ac­cel­er­ate the pro­cess of put­ting newly-re­gistered medi­cines on the Rus­si­an mar­ket. In case of their short­age (or the risk of short­age) while sanc­tions are in place, it will be pos­sible to im­port medi­cines, put them on the mar­ket and use them in Rus­sia in the ori­gin­al (i.e. for­eign) pack­aging without a Rus­si­an trans­la­tion.The rel­ev­ant bill* has already passed first read­ing and, if ad­op­ted, will come in­to force on the date of its of­fi­cial pub­lic­a­tion. Giv­en the prompt­ness of the ad­op­tion of counter-sanc­tions in Rus­sia, the ad­op­tion of this law can be ex­pec­ted in the com­ing days.* In Rus­si­an

Strong re­cog­ni­tion by the rank­ing 32 CMS Rus­sia ex­perts have been se­lec­ted for in­clu­sion in­to the 2022 edi­tion of the Best Law­yers rank­ing. In total, we have earned 74 re­cog­ni­tions by the rank­ing :Ant­on...

CMS Rus­sia has been ranked in the fol­low­ing cat­egor­ies: Bank­ing & Fin­ance­Com­pet­i­tion/An­ti­trust Cor­por­ate/M&A: High-End Cap­ab­il­it­ies Em­ploy­ment Life Sci­ences TMT In­di­vidu­al ac­know­ledg­ment re­ceivedElena...

The lead­ing na­tion­al leg­al dir­ect­ory Pravo.ru-300 has re­vealed the re­com­men­ded law­yers across 29 areas of law.This year sev­en CMS Rus­sia ex­perts have been ac­know­ledged by the rank­ing this year. Pravo.ru-300...

CMS has suc­cess­fully de­fen­ded in­terests of GE Health­care in the court of ap­peal and fur­ther in the court of cas­sa­tion against the Rus­si­an health­care reg­u­lat­ory au­thor­ity (Roszdravn­ad­zor), in the case...

Gen­er­al back­groundThe Rus­si­an leg­al sys­tem gen­er­ally be­longs to the con­tin­ent­al European leg­al fam­ily. The leg­al struc­ture de­veloped at a rap­id pace dur­ing the 1990s. Dur­ing this peri­od, sig­ni­fic­ant re­forms were en­acted in al­most every area of law as the coun­try moved away from its So­viet com­mand eco­nomy.The Con­sti­tu­tion, fed­er­al laws and re­gion­al laws form the found­a­tion of the Rus­si­an leg­al sys­tem. Pres­id­en­tial ex­ec­ut­ive or­ders, de­crees of the Rus­si­an Gov­ern­ment and the de­cisions of vari­ous min­is­tries are used to sup­port and de­vel­op the pro­vi­sions of primary le­gis­la­tion.The Con­sti­tu­tion states that gen­er­al prin­ciples of in­ter­na­tion­al law and in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies are part of the Rus­si­an leg­al sys­tem. Con­sequently, if Rus­sia is a sig­nat­ory to an in­ter­na­tion­al treaty con­tain­ing pro­vi­sions con­trary to the pro­vi­sions of any do­mest­ic le­gis­la­tion, the pro­vi­sions of the in­ter­na­tion­al treaty will pre­vail. The Con­sti­tu­tion, how­ever, takes pre­ced­ence over any con­tra­dict­ing pro­vi­sion of an in­ter­na­tion­al treaty.The Rus­si­an Civil Code (the “Civil Code”) sets out the found­a­tion of civil law and is the key source of law for busi­ness. As part of the re­form, sig­ni­fic­ant amend­ments to the Civil Code con­cern­ing cor­por­ate law and the law of ob­lig­a­tions came in­to force in Septem­ber 2014 and June 2015. These amend­ments form the most sig­ni­fic­ant de­vel­op­ment since the shap­ing of mod­ern cor­por­ate and com­mer­cial law in Rus­sia. Today, a num­ber of con­cepts which have for a long time been com­mon to in­ter­na­tion­al prac­tice in cor­por­ate, debt and gen­er­al com­mer­cial areas, are also re­cog­nised and widely used in Rus­sia, in par­tic­u­lar:cor­por­ate agree­ments;the “four-eyes” prin­ciple;the con­di­tion­al per­form­ance of ob­lig­a­tions;the concept of rep­res­ent­a­tions (“zaveren­iya ob ob­stoy­a­tel­stvakh”) (an in­ten­ded equi­val­ent of “rep­res­ent­a­tions” and “war­ranties” as used in con­tracts un­der Eng­lish law);the concept of the re­im­burse­ment of losses arising from the oc­cur­rence of cer­tain events spe­cified in a con­tract (the in­ten­ded equi­val­ent of the Eng­lish law concept of an “in­dem­nity”);new types of civil law con­tracts, such as op­tions, frame­work agree­ments and sub­scrip­tion agree­ments;rules for the con­duct of ne­go­ti­ations to con­clude a con­tract; andnew mech­an­isms to se­cure the per­form­ance of con­trac­tu­al ob­lig­a­tions by the parties.These highly sig­ni­fic­ant changes to the Civil Code are in­ten­ded to ac­com­mod­ate the grow­ing trend of sub­mit­ting com­plic­ated trans­ac­tion doc­u­ments to Rus­si­an law and Rus­si­an courts in­stead of Eng­lish law and in­ter­na­tion­al ar­bit­ra­tion which were tra­di­tion­ally the “well-trod­den path” in Rus­sia. It is yet to be seen how the new con­cepts and pro­vi­sions will be en­forced by courts and ar­bit­ral tribunals. Nev­er­the­less, in prac­tice, com­pan­ies are act­ively us­ing the new con­cepts in their pro­jects.WTO­Fol­low­ing 18 years of ne­go­ti­ations, Rus­sia fi­nally joined the World Trade Or­gan­isa­tion in sum­mer 2012 (please see the Cus­toms reg­u­la­tions chapter).At the time, WTO ac­ces­sion sent a pos­it­ive sig­nal to for­eign in­vestors. However, not­able changes such as a ma­ter­i­al drop in tar­iffs on im­por­ted goods and changes to the quotas for for­eign par­ti­cip­a­tion in the in­sur­ance sec­tor have not yet come in­to ef­fect be­cause of the long grace peri­ods that are al­lowed. For ex­ample, un­der WTO rules, for­eign in­sur­ance com­pan­ies will be able to open branch of­fices in Rus­sia, but this is not re­quired to take ef­fect un­til nine years after ac­ces­sion. The rel­ev­ant bill to im­ple­ment this change is in pro­gress and has yet to be sub­mit­ted to the State Duma.For­eign in­vest­ment Leg­al reg­u­la­tionThe main le­gis­lat­ive act gov­ern­ing for­eign in­vest­ments is Fed­er­al Law No. 160-FZ “On For­eign In­vest­ment in the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion” dated 9 Ju­ly 1999. This law states that for­eign in­vestors and in­vest­ments will be treated no less fa­vour­ably than do­mest­ic in­vestors and in­vest­ments, sub­ject to cer­tain wide-ran­ging ex­cep­tions.Ex­cep­tions/re­stric­tions may be in­tro­duced, amongst oth­ers, to pro­tect the Rus­si­an con­sti­tu­tion­al sys­tem; the mor­al­ity, health and rights of third parties; or in or­der to en­sure state se­cur­ity and/or de­fence. Some of the sec­tors con­cerned are com­men­ted on sep­ar­ately be­low. By and large, for­eign in­vest­ment is per­mit­ted in most sec­tors of the Rus­si­an eco­nomy, in­clud­ing in­vest­ment in port­fo­li­os of gov­ern­ment se­cur­it­ies, stocks and bonds, dir­ect in­vest­ment in new busi­nesses, in the ac­quis­i­tion of ex­ist­ing Rus­si­an-owned com­pan­ies and in joint ven­tures.For­eign in­vestors are pro­tec­ted against na­tion­al­isa­tion or ex­pro­pri­ation, un­less this is provided for by fed­er­al law. In these cases, for­eign in­vestors are en­titled to re­ceive com­pens­a­tion for their in­vest­ment and oth­er losses.Ex­clu­sions/re­stric­tionsIn ad­di­tion to the so-called “Stra­tegic In­dus­tries Law” (please see the Com­mon forms of busi­ness struc­tures for for­eign in­vestors chapter), re­stric­tions on for­eign in­vest­ment ex­ist not­ably in the in­sur­ance and bank­ing sec­tors.Fed­er­al Law No. 4015-1 “On In­sur­ance” dated 27 Novem­ber 1992 cur­rently pro­hib­its for­eign in­vestors from own­ing more than 25% of the total mar­ket for do­mest­ic in­sur­ance. In­sur­ance com­pan­ies in which for­eign share­hold­ers own more than 49% of the charter cap­it­al may not en­gage in cer­tain types of in­sur­ance busi­ness, in­clud­ing, for ex­ample, life as­sur­ance. The ex­ist­ing lim­it­a­tions will be partly lif­ted by the le­gis­lat­ive amend­ments which will be con­sidered in con­nec­tion with WTO ac­ces­sion.In the bank­ing sec­tor, the Cent­ral Bank of Rus­sia has the right to use re­ci­pro­city as a cri­terion to spe­cify the types of busi­ness that sub­si­di­ar­ies or branches of for­eign banks may be li­censed to op­er­ate in Rus­sia. In prac­tice, how­ever, branches of for­eign banks are not able to carry out any bank­ing activ­it­ies on the Rus­si­an mar­ket. Ad­di­tion­ally, a ceil­ing on the total amount of for­eign bank cap­it­al, as a per­cent­age of the total bank cap­it­al in Rus­sia, can be im­posed by fed­er­al law; how­ever, no such lim­it ap­plies at the time of writ­ing. Un­der WTO rules, any such ceil­ing may not be less than 50%.Sanc­tionsIn 2014, the European Uni­on and the United States of Amer­ica (among oth­ers) im­posed in­di­vidu­al sanc­tions on cer­tain Rus­si­an and Ukrain­i­an na­tion­als and en­tit­ies that they be­lieve to be re­spons­ible for the ac­tions which led to the de­clar­a­tion of sov­er­eignty by Crimea, and sub­sequently, it be­com­ing part of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion. Sanc­tions tar­get­ing cer­tain sec­tors of the Rus­si­an eco­nomy (or so-called “sec­tor­al sanc­tions”), as well as re­gion­al sanc­tions pro­hib­it­ing cer­tain eco­nom­ic activ­ity re­lated to Crimea and Sevastopol, have also been ad­op­ted.In re­tali­ation, Rus­sia ad­op­ted coun­tersanc­tions to pro­hib­it the im­port of cer­tain ag­ri­cul­tur­al products, raw ma­ter­i­als and food­stuffs from coun­tries that have im­posed sanc­tions on Rus­sia. In par­al­lel, it also launched an im­port sub­sti­tu­tion policy (please see the Im­port sub­sti­tu­tion and pro­duc­tion loc­al­isa­tion in Rus­sia chapter).2018 marked a turn­ing point in terms of sanc­tions for Rus­sia. In May, the US en­acted le­gis­la­tion that may res­ult in non-US per­sons be­ing held li­able for know­ingly fa­cil­it­at­ing “sig­ni­fic­ant trans­ac­tions” for or on be­half of per­sons sanc­tioned un­der Ukraine-/Rus­sia-re­lated sanc­tions im­posed by the US (so-called “sec­ond­ary sanc­tions”). In Oc­to­ber 2018, the EU ad­op­ted a new sanc­tions frame­work in con­nec­tion with the use and pro­lif­er­a­tion of chem­ic­al weapons which does not ex­pressly tar­get Rus­sia, but is ex­pec­ted to be used against Rus­sia in fu­ture.Again, Rus­sia re­acted to these de­vel­op­ments. Firstly, it ad­op­ted a frame­work law on meas­ures against un­friendly ac­tions of the US and oth­er for­eign states in June 2018 and im­posed the first sanc­tions un­der such law against Ukrain­i­an in­di­vidu­als and leg­al en­tit­ies in Novem­ber 2018. Secondly, it im­posed du­ties on a se­lec­tion of goods im­por­ted from the US from 6 Au­gust 2018. Thirdly, a ban on the im­port to Rus­sia of a num­ber of goods of Ukrain­i­an ori­gin or trans­it­ing through Ukraine was de­clared in Decem­ber 2018 and ex­pan­ded in scope in Decem­ber 2019.Sanc­tions against Rus­si­aEven though each na­tion­al sanc­tions re­gime will vary in scope, the re­stric­tions im­posed can be broadly char­ac­ter­ised as fol­lows.Un­der the in­di­vidu­al sanc­tions re­gime, travel re­stric­tions and as­set freezes have been im­posed on in­di­vidu­als and en­tit­ies lis­ted un­der the rel­ev­ant leg­al acts.Sec­tor­al sanc­tions have been im­posed on the fol­low­ing sec­tors of Rus­si­an eco­nomy:En­ergy sec­tor: the sale, sup­ply, trans­fer or ex­port of items for cer­tain types of oil ex­plor­a­tion and pro­duc­tion pro­jects in Rus­sia and the pro­vi­sion of as­so­ci­ated ser­vices are pro­hib­ited, or sub­ject to pri­or au­thor­isa­tion by the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies of the ex­port­ing coun­try. De­part­ing from pre­vi­ous widely worded pro­hib­i­tions, in Decem­ber 2019, the US ad­op­ted a tar­geted ap­proach in the en­ergy sec­tor by re­strict­ing activ­it­ies con­nec­ted with the con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion of the Nord Stream 2 and Turk­Stream pipelines.Fin­an­cial sec­tor: ma­jor Rus­si­an fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions, as well as cer­tain de­fence and en­ergy com­pan­ies, have been pro­hib­ited from deal­ing with bonds, equity or sim­il­ar fin­an­cial in­stru­ments with a ma­tur­ity ex­ceed­ing 14, 30 or 90 days. It is also pro­hib­ited to make loans or cred­it avail­able to any of the en­tit­ies covered by the meas­ures.De­fence sec­tor: Rus­sia is sub­ject to a weapons em­bargo. In ad­di­tion, sup­ply­ing dual use goods and tech­no­logy to Rus­sia is sub­ject to in­di­vidu­al au­thor­isa­tion by the re­spect­ive au­thor­it­ies of the ex­port­ing coun­try. The au­thor­isa­tion will be denied if those items are in­ten­ded for mil­it­ary use or for a mil­it­ary end-user. This type of sanc­tion also af­fects the man­u­fac­ture of civil goods and equip­ment.The activ­it­ies pro­hib­ited un­der re­gion­al sanc­tions in­clude im­port­a­tions from and ex­port­a­tions to Crimea, as well as mak­ing new in­vest­ments (either in gen­er­al or in cer­tain sec­tors).As a res­ult of some re­cent meas­ures aimed at the Rus­si­an state, US banks can no longer par­ti­cip­ate in the primary mar­ket for non-rouble de­nom­in­ated bonds is­sued by the Rus­si­an sov­er­eign and lend non-rouble de­nom­in­ated funds to the Rus­si­an sov­er­eign.Sanc­tions im­posed on Rus­sia are not pro­hib­it­ing all com­mer­cial activ­ity. They are fo­cus­ing on very spe­cif­ic in­di­vidu­als, en­tit­ies, re­gions and eco­nom­ic sec­tors. Com­pan­ies wish­ing to con­tract with Rus­si­an en­tit­ies should carry out en­hanced due di­li­gence to en­sure that they do not be­come in­volved in activ­it­ies pro­hib­ited un­der the rel­ev­ant sanc­tions re­gime.Lob­by­ing­Giv­en how slowly the leg­al cul­ture has de­veloped in Rus­sia, busi­nesses tend not to ex­pend their lob­by­ing ef­forts on at­tempt­ing to in­flu­ence the draft­ing of new laws or the ac­tions of those draft­ing them. In­stead, busi­nesses tend to seek de facto spe­cial treat­ment, such as tax de­fer­ments, cus­toms be­ne­fits, op­er­a­tion li­cences and the right to en­gage in cer­tain kinds of activ­ity. In do­ing so, how­ever it may be that these com­pan­ies ex­pose them­selves un­duly to “polit­ic­al risk” upon any change of ad­min­is­tra­tion and com­pan­ies en­ter­ing the mar­ket need to con­sider how se­cure such con­ces­sions might be for their busi­ness in the long term.There are not many leg­ally re­cog­nised lob­by­ing as­so­ci­ations with a large mem­ber­ship base. Prom­in­ent ex­amples of as­so­ci­ations that do ex­ist are the As­so­ci­ation of Rus­si­an Banks, the Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dustry of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion, the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pend­ent Trade Uni­ons of Rus­sia and the Uni­on of In­dus­tri­al­ists and En­tre­pren­eurs.Back to top ↑ “The Rus­si­an Civil Code sets out the found­a­tion of civil law and is the key source of law for busi­ness.”  me­di­um­me­di­um­me­di­um

CMS has suc­cess­fully rep­res­en­ted in­terests of GE Health­care in sev­er­al court pro­ceed­ings against the Rus­si­an health­care reg­u­lat­ory au­thor­ity (Roszdravn­ad­zor). We could in­val­id­ate the reg­u­lat­or’s re­fus­al...

Strong re­cog­ni­tion by the rank­ing 26 CMS Rus­sia ex­perts have been se­lec­ted for in­clu­sion in­to the 2021 edi­tion of the Best Law­yers. In total, we have earned 58 re­cog­ni­tions by the rank­ing:Ant­on Bankovskiy...