New Licensing Law Adopted

Pepeliaev Group advises that on 4 May 2011 the President of the Russian Federation signed Federal Law No. 99-FZ “On licensing specific operations” (the “Law”) that will replace the current licensing law.

The Law amends the list of operations subject to licensing, stipulates that a licence is provided for an indefinite period and introduces other rules that may affect companies practicing operations that are subject to licensing.

Please find the description of the most material amendments below:

1. The Law amends the list of operations that are subject to licensing. There are a very few operations for which the licensing requirement has been abolished. Among these are cargo carriage by water vessels in domestic waters and by railway transport (with the exception of dangerous cargoes), air safety activities etc. In some cases the licensing is not required where persons perform the relevant operations for their own needs (for example, the maintenance of encryption tools). The draft provision that abolished mandatory licensing of medical and pharmaceutical activities has been excluded from the final version of the Law.

2. The Law introduces the concept of a licence for an indefinite term. Newly issued licenses will be valid without any restriction as to duration, while licences previously issued for operations listed in the Law will, as of the date on which the law comes into force, become valid for an indefinite term. The licences issued for operations that have been re-named in the Law should be re-issued after their expiry date to comply with the new licensing requirements and the re-issued licences will also become valid for an indefinite term.

3. The Law stipulates in more detail the grounds and procedure for auditing licensees and licence applicants, inter alia, the grounds for holding unscheduled field audits. Under the new Law the unscheduled audits of licence applicants (when the latter file their licence applications) may be held without an authorisation from the prosecutions department.

4. The Law covers those operations that have been previously licensed under special legislation, such as communications services, security and detective services, educational and medical activities. At the same time, additional requirements (including on the term of the licence and procedure for it to be issued and extended) may still be imposed by special legislation with regard to the television and radio broadcasting services, security and detective services, as well as educational activities.

The Law will come into force within 180 days after its publication date. The rules on supervising compliance with licensing requirements, including the audits performed by licensing bodies, will come into force on 1 July 2011.
The adoption of the Law will require amendments to be made to the resolution of the Russian Government that sets out licensing requirements for a number of specific operations and administrative regulations of licensing authorities.

We recommend that companies whose operations are subject to licensing pay special attention to the new provisions of the law and follow up on amendments to the resolutions of the Government and administrative regulations referred to above.

Our lawyers have extensive experience in liaising with licensing authorities and are ready to provide legal support on licensing issues.

For further details, please contact:

in Moscow – Elena Ovcharova, Head of the Administrative Defence of Business Group, at (495) 967-00-07 or by e-mail

in St Petersburg - Sergey Spasennov, Partner, Head of St. Petersburg office, at (812) 640-60-10 or by e-mail; Alexander Korkin, Associate, at (812) 640-60-10 or by a.korkin@pgplaw.ru