According to this novelty applicants will be able to receive data from the Unified state register of real estate (EGRN) on a paid basis. For this purpose applications can be submitted personally or in electronic format through the web portal of governmental services (www.gosuslugi.ru). Also, the data can be requested from the federal state information system (FGIS EGRN) available at the official site of the Federal Registration Service.

Information must be provided to the applicant within three working days after the inquiry was received in electronic format or on paper. Individuals will be informed on the status of the inquiry by means of e-mail or SMS. If the inquiry is submitted via the website of the Federal Registration Service, it will be possible to trace its status independently using the web service called “Check the Status of On-line Inquiry”.

According to the Order of the Ministry of Economic Development dated 16.03.2016 No. 137 from 2017 the Federal Registration Service is obliged to notify applicants on progress of all governmental services they requested automatically and free of charge. The authorities will be able to send such notifications both by e-mail and via SMS.

The order includes official notifications on the following events: receiving the official fee for providing governmental services; acceptance of applications and supporting documents for processing; returning supporting documents without consideration (if there are reasonable grounds for this decision) and the time when those documents can be received; suspension of the state cadastral registration and (or) the state registration of rights or refusal to provide governmental services; termination of the state cadastral registration and (or) the state registration of rights; registration in the state cadastre and (or) state registration of rights and the process of obtaining relevant documents.

The judicial panel for economic disputes of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has for the first time considered on the merits the case on recovery of compensation for unreasonable interim measures that violated the rights and legitimate interests of the applicant.

As the Supreme Court explained, to recover compensation one must only prove that their rights and legitimate interests were violated through the interim measures in question. The actual amount of compensation is to be defined by court based on the circumstances of the case and negative consequences caused by these interim measures.

We recall that courts quite often demanded that applicants prove the exact amount of losses incurred, even in compensation recovery cases, which was not possible in all cases.

Since it is the first favorable decision on such case, this decision has precedential value and most likely will facilitate establishment of a wide-spread practice on recovering such losses, and also will force economic entities to think before applying for interim measures.

The audit by the public and local control authorities is usually associated with a broad list of requested documents. Failure to provide such documents entails administrative liability and negative effects on the audit results. At the same time, many documents and information usually requested by the controlling (supervising) authorities can be received upon application to the public and local authorities possessing the necessary information. Thus, the government removed obligation for providing such documents from the inspectee.

The list of documents requested by the controlling (supervising) authorities independently is determined in the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated19.04.2016 N 724-p and includes the documents containing data on (non-)existence of construction licenses and clearings for operation, data from the state registers and accounting reports, data on debts for taxes and in the state and non-state funds, etc. Thus, requesting such documents from legal entities and private entrepreneurs will become wrongful.

The bill comes into force on 01.07.2016. Regional public control authorities will have to observe the amendments on auditing legal entities and private entrepreneurs from 01.01.2017, and local control (supervision) authorities – from 01.07.2017.

Individuals, including residents with residence permits on the territory of the Russian Federation are obliged to submit cash flow reports in respect of all accounts owned by them in foreign banks no later than May 31 of the year following the reporting year. Such reports have to contain information on the account balance as of both the beginning and the end of the period, as well as settled profits and losses.

In case of violation of the reporting procedure the law provides for the fine in the amount of 300 to 20 000 RUR. Such offense can also negatively affect possible prolongation of the residence permit. It should be noted that accounts opened in branches of the Russian banks abroad are excluded from these regulations.