Legal certainties and investment rights in the Russian Federation given a boost by a two year Dutch-Russian legal cooperation project.
Over the past 24 months the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation, the highest judicial body for the resolution of commercial disputes, has worked with several Dutch legal experts of the Center for International Legal Cooperation (CILC) on drafting proposed amendments to the imperfect and limited Russian Federal Law “On the state registration of legal entities and private entrepreneurs.” This law that regulates the state registration of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs during their establishment, reorganization and liquidation was in for a critical review as it hampered economic development and frustrated legal safeguards for business actors in the Russian Federation.
This Dutch-Russian legal cooperation project focused mainly on the governmental body responsible for the keeping of the state register for legal entities, the role of public notaries in formalizing, founding and registering legal entities, the concept and structure of the regulation of the Russian registration procedure, the content and scope of information kept in a trade register, and the verification provisions for the designated registration authority.
In various consultations in Russia and the Netherlands the involved Dutch legal experts have put the Russian key issues in the field of registration of legal entities in a very practical broad international perspective, ensuring them to interlink with relevant international developments and trends. This fruitful collaboration resulted in the preparation of a final draft law proposing changes to the existing regulation of the Russian registration procedure.
The next step in getting towards a safer and more certain investment environment in Russia would be the adoption by the Russian legislator, the State Duma, of the recommended amendments to the current legislation.