The Federal law №12-FL as of 07.02.2017 was amended the Chapter One of the Civil Code of RF in part of introduction of a special legal form for the Federal Notary Chamber and notary chambers of the RF subjects. The amendments have come into force since February 7, 2017.

Before adoption of these amendments notary chambers were classified by legal form as non-profit organizations, such as associations and unions.

Activity of notary chambers as legal entities is regulated with the Fundamentals of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the notariate, assembling a set of features and differences by the legal status. Notaries and notary chambers are not subsidiary responsible by their liabilities. Versus associations or unions with sole management body, notaries’ philosophy is based upon self-ruling and collegiateness, i.e. the general meeting of members, president and management council control a notary chamber.

At the same time, according to the Federal law №7-FL as of 12.01.1996 “On non-profit organizations”, members of association or union are subsidiary responsible by their liabilities, the amount of which should be provided in the constituent documents.

Under the adopted Federal law, notary chambers, including the Federal Notary Chamber, are out of associations and unions to resolve the contradictions.

According to the adopted amendments, notary chambers are non-profit corporate organizations. Legal state, procedure of establishment and activity are regulated with the legislation on the notariate.

The Federal law also specified a number of definitions: notary chamber is determined as non-profit organization – professional union with compulsory membership; and notary chamber of the RF subject is a professional union with compulsory membership of practicing notaries. The Federal Notary Chamber is their professional union and is based on compulsory membership too.

Currently the documents of notary chambers are bringing to conformity with the adopted amendments.

The Federal Notary Chamber unifies 84 notary chambers of the RF subjects.

According to the Information and Analytical system Globas-i^® 65 notary chambers and over 5800 notaries engaged in private practice are officially registered in Russia.

Licensing of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs to conduct works on quarantine phytosanitary disinfection is specified by the Article 27 of the Federal law №206-FL as of 21.07.2014 (amended on 13.07.2015) “On Plant Quarantine”. The standard will come into force from January 1, 2018. Up to this date these works are conducted by the relevant divisions of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor).

According to the Law, works on quarantine phytosanitary disinfection have to be performed in following cases:

• import or export of under-quarantine objects or products from/to Russia;
• necessity of issuance of quarantine or phytosanitary certificates;
• having the Rosselkhoznadzor order to conduct quarantine phytosanitary disinfection of under-quarantine products;
• decision of under-quarantine products’ owner to carry out disinfection as a quarantine phytosanitary measure, if under-quarantine products are infected or polluted with quarantine objects.

The Article 2 of the same Law defines concepts of under-quarantine objects and products. Under-quarantine products are plants, plant products, package, including packing materials, freights, soil, organisms or materials which can be carriers of quarantine objects or support to their spreading. Under-quarantine objects are land parcels, buildings and facilities, reservoirs, storage sites, equipment, vehicles, containers and other objects which can support hazardous organisms, missing or being stenotopic in the country, and included in the common list of quarantine objects, to get into the territory of Russia or to be spread. The list is adopted by the relevant order №501 of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia as of 15.12.2014 (registered in the Ministry of Justice on 29.12.2014 №35459).

In execution of provisions of the law, RF Government Decree №133 as of 03.02.2017 «On approval of the Regulation on licensing the activities of legal entities, individual entrepreneurs for the right to perform works on quarantine phytosanitary disinfection» was adopted. The Decree will come into force since January 1, 2018.

According to the Decree, requirements necessary for conducting activities on disinfection are imposed to license applicants. Among them: having property or other legal objects not included in residential properties, having appropriate equipment and control, alarm, alerting and protection systems.

Regardless of work performed, to obtain a license the applicants have to provide the licensing authority (Rosselkhoznadzor) with an application and documents confirming the registration of property objects in the Unified State Register of Real Estate (EGRN); copies of documents confirming the inventory of equipment and systems mentioned above. To be licensed on certain types of work additional documents could be required.

Decision on issue or refusal, suspension, re-issue of license and other decisions are made according to the procedure established by the Federal law «On licensing certain types of activity».

For issue, re-issue of a license, issue of a copy of a license the state duty is fixed. The amount and payment date are specified by the legislation of Russia on taxes and duties.

The Decree also prescribes the procedure of verifying data containing in application for a license and enclosed documents, as well as procedure of licensing control and revocation, re-issue, suspension and restoration of licenses.