Federal Law «On trade secret» was amended

Federal Law № 86-FZ dated 18.04.2018 amended Article 5 of the Federal Law «On trade secret», eliminating the legal divergence of concepts «salary» and «social payments».

Item 6 of the Article 5 of the Federal Law «On trade secret» stated that the concept of trade secret does not apply to information «on employers’ arrears in salaries and other social payments». It means that the salary was referred to social payments that contradicts the norms of the Labor Code of the RF.

The Article 129 of the Labor Code of the RF defines salary as remuneration for labor in accordance with the qualification of an employee, the complexity, quantity, quality and conditions of the work performed. The same concept includes various compensations and bonuses. Social payments, in their turn, are not related to salary and are not included in the payroll budget.

This Federal Law excluded the word «other» for dissolution of this inconsistency in item 6 of the Article 5 of the Federal Law «On trade secret». Thus, trade secret cannot apply to information about employers’ arrears to employees in salaries and social payments.

For reference
According to the Federal State Statistics Service, arrears in salaries countrywide in the whole were overdue to almost 40 000 workers as of January 1, 2018. In 2018, compared to the previous year, there has been a reduction in the number of employees, to whom there are arrears in salaries (Table 1).