Legislative changes

The Federal Law No. 27-FZ dated 24/02/2021 amended the Article 21 of the Federal Law "On Foreign Investments in the Russian Federation". This article regulates establishment, opening and termination of branches and representative offices of foreign legal entities in Russia as well as the procedure for their accreditation and maintenance of the relevant State Register.

The Law provides procedures for suspending accreditations, making changes to the Register of accredited branches and representative offices of foreign legal entities' data, as well as termination of accreditation. The latter is possible in cases of failure to submit necessary documents, or submission of documents that do not meet the approved forms, formats and requirements for registration.

The length of the procedure is reduced to 15 working days from the date of submission of relevant documents as well as an application for accreditation. Accreditation of branches (representative offices) operating in the field of civil aviation will take up to 25 working days.

At least one of the following reasons can serve as a term for refusal to accreditate:

• failure to eliminate in time violations that served as a basis for the decision on suspension;
• submission of documents violating deadline set period of 12 months after a decision on establishment;
• submitted constituent or other documents include false data;
• conflicting purposes of establishing (opening) branches (representative offices) or gross violations of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, international treaties and legislation of the Russian Federation;
• threatening the sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity and national interests of the Russian Federation;
• administrative offenses, administrative penalties in the form of disqualification in relation to the head of the branch (representative office);
• arrears of taxes, fees, insurance premiums, penalties, fines and interests exceeding the sum of 3 thousand rubles on the first day of the month in which the application for accreditation was submitted;
• lack of authority of a federal executive body to make a decision on accreditation.

Refusal to accreditate may be appealed in court or during a pre-trial procedure established by Chapter 2.1 of the Federal Law No. 210-FZ dated 27/07/2010 "On the Organization of the provision of State and Municipal services".

Implementation of accreditation procedure is a subject to a state fee in accordance with the tax legislation.

The Federal Law will enter into force in August 2021, 180 days after the date of its official release.

64 new accredited branches and representative offices of foreign legal entities have been registered in the State Register since the beginning of 2021.

Information about all more than 200 thousand operating and discontinued branches and representative offices of legal entities in Russia including foreign ones is available to the users of the Information and Analytical system Globas.