Rules are made more clear for imposing administrative fines below the lower threshold

The Draft Law has been developed to bring the provisions of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences (the “Administrative Code”) in line with the position set forth in Resolution No. 15-P of the Russian Constitutional Court dated 7 April 2020. For more details on the Resolution, please read our alert.

The Constitutional Court noted that it being possible under the Administrative Code to impose an administrative penalty on a legal entity below the lower threshold only if the relevant administrative offence is stipulated by the Administrative Code rather than by Russian constituent entities' laws on administrative offences lays the groundwork for discriminative administration of law.

Since the Constitutional Court’s position is universal, the legislators extended the approach set forth in Resolution No. 15-P of the Constitutional Court to individuals and officers to ensure the principle of equality before the law.

The Draft Law proposes that:

• a possibility be established for imposing an administrative penalty below the lower threshold as stipulated by the sanction of the relevant article of the Russian constituent entity's law on administrative offences for both legal entities and individuals and officers;
• a minimum threshold of the fine which allows for this rule to be applied be reduced for individuals from RUB 10,000 to RUB 5,000.

What to think about and what to do

We recommend that you should monitor the status of the Draft Law, and that, when you elaborate a strategy for protecting your interests, you should explore and substantiate the facts which allow for the fine to be reduced below the lower threshold.

Help from your adviser

Pepeliaev Group’s lawyers have significant experience of representing clients in cases concerning administrative liability both in courts and before administrative authorities and are ready to provide the full range of qualified legal support. 

 [1] Draft law No. 1008818-7 ‘On amending Article 4.1 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences’.