New procedure for maintaining the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and the Unified State Register of Sole Entrepreneurs (EGRUL/EGRIP) approved by the order of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation №165N of 30.10.2017 came into force on 1 March 2018. The order of the Ministry of Finance №25N of 18.02.2015 on approval of previous Procedure is declared invalid.

New procedure contains rules and periods of EGRUL/EGRIP data application, the technical error correction procedure and requirements for the content of the registers.

In case of differences in EGRUL/EGRIP data on electronic data carriers and paper documents, the priority should be given to hard copies.

In case of changes in EGRUL/EGRIP data, the previous data must be stored in the registries.

Technical errors in the registries should be corrected by making new records in EGRUL/EGRIP with the relevant links to erroneous recordings. The authorities of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation, which corrected technical errors within 3 working days, should inform the relevant parties who reported about the errors in a written form.

New procedure does not contain rules on providing data or documents from the registries due to the changed procedure on obtaining the information above approved by the order of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation №5N of 15.01.2015.

The Federal Law №451-FZ «On amendments to the Federal Law «On electric power industry» and certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation related to the licensing of power supply activity» dated December 29, 2017 has established that power supply activity after December 30, 2018 can be carried out only on the basis of licenses issued in accordance with this Federal Law and the Regulation on the licensing of power supply activity approved by the Government of the RF.

The law defines power supply activity as the sale of electricity (purchased or produced) in retail markets as well within the Unified Energy System of Russia (UES of Russia) as in territories where technologically there is no connection with the UES of Russia.

The rules for the licensing of power supply activity are determined by:

• lists of licensing requirements for applicants, of grounds for the decision for refusal to grant a license or for their re-registration, grounds for conducting unscheduled inspections against licensees;
• regulations of the organization of licensing control, of termination of a license, the work of the commission for licensing of power supply activity.

The law establishes the procedure for the creation of a consolidated register of licenses for power supply activity at the federal level. the information from this register should be available to the public and posted on the official Internet resource of the state licensing authority.

For the conducting of power supply activity without a license or with violations of license requirements, as well as for other violations related to the licensing of activities since December 30, 2018, an administrative responsibility has been established.

Power supply companies are obliged to obtain licenses no later than on the 29^th of December 2018. Later this term the power supply activity without a license is impossible.

According to the Information and Analytical system Globas, there are about 2 000 companies with the registered main activity «Trading in electricity» in Russia and more than 16 000 firms, which have registered this type of activity among others.

According to the investigation published on the 22nd of February 2013 by the Information agency Credinform «Trends in the field of power supply activity», Mosenergosbyt PJSC – guaranteeing supplier of electric power in the territory of Moscow and Moscow region – became the largest Russian company in terms of revenue in 2016.