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Current Russian Civil Code states that exclusive intellectual property right may belong to one person or to several persons jointly. It means that if intellectual property has several proprietors, they are entitled to dispose of it only in a joint tenancy mode, i.e. it is necessary to obtain consent of…
New rules for paying “Google tax” – VAT that is paid by foreign companies which provide electronic services to Russian customers – have entered into force in Russia since January 1, 2019. Previously this tax was paid by the customers instead of foreign companies-sellers. Now, according to the new rules,…
System of financial messages transfer (SFMT), Russian analogue to SWIFT, is in operation since late 2014. Almost 400 companies have been connected to it as at April 2019. According to current legislation, only Russian banks and their clients as well as foreign credit institutions and international organizations could be SFMT-members…
When digital financial assets appeared in Russia, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance defined them as highly risky money surrogate without legal protection and proposed to ban them in Russia. However, such position did not significantly affect the development of digital assets in Russia, and this development was…
Ministry of Finance will not extend Amnesty of capitals after March 01, 2019 on previous conditions. According to new rules the guarantees will be provided for one more year to investors who transfer their assets to special administrative districts in Russia. As the Deputy Minister of Finance explained, such investors…
Due to new obligation for e-services providers to get registered in Tax authorities, a lot of companies asked us for support on this matter. VALEN law firm has successfully registered a lot of clients as VAT-payers for providing e-services. Since January 01, 2019 foreign companies providing e-services for companies and…
President Vladimir Putin suggested to exempt perpetrators of crimes from criminal liability if they fully compensate material losses to the victim. This innovation will affect following crimes: credit and insurance fraud or fraud using electronic payment systems; fraud in business activity; copyright abuse; patent infringement and others. Also suggested to…
Russian Classifier of Economic Activities (OKVED) is a list of the types of economic activity under certain codes. Companies-taxpayers choose their own types of activity and provide information about their codes (main and additional) to register authorities. According to the new letter of The Federal Tax Service, assigning the code…
Minister of Economic Development of Russia announced that the term “family business” may appear in Russian legislation. It will be the next step of small business development in Russia, which will give some entrepreneurs an opportunity to make their business activity legal. At the first stage of reform, only entrepreneurs,…
So called «Google Tax» has been being in force in Russia since 2017. It was adopted to protect Russian IT companies on the e-services market. This tax oblige such corporations as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others to pay VAT if they provide following e-services in Russia: advertise distribution on…
Companies in Russia are obliged to have certain positions in the staff list. Labor books Every company should have a person responsible for maintenance, storage, accounting and issue of labor books. The company do not need to create a separate position in the staff list for such employee. Generally, the…
In one of the last cases RF Supreme Court compared employment agreement and service agreement. The Court specified the following differences: Purpose of the agreementThe main purpose of employment agreement is a systematic work performance. Service agreement purpose is execution of agreed task by a certain date. Subject matter of the agreementThe subject…
Commonly tax authorities are investigating if the company’s deals are aimed at taxes evasion only. To minimize the risks of claims company should have proof of due diligence in choosing counterparties and concluding contracts. In particular it is recommended to request from counterparty: Certified charter copy; Certificates of tax and company registration (certificate…
Employees are generally responsible for disclosing commercial secrets in the company. The employee disclosed a commercial secret should be dismissed. Nevertheless, that is often complicated to prove the lawfulness of dismissal at court. The employers often do not comply with requirements to the protection of the confidential information: companies do…
