Reduction of administrative burden for small and medium-sized enterprises

On April 06, 2022 the Federal Law as of March 26, 2022 "On the introduction of amendments to the Code of administrative offences of the Russian Federation" comes into force which is intended to reduce the administrative burden on the small and medium-sized enterprises, including the micro-enterprises (hereinafter "SMEs"), and socially oriented non-profit organizations (hereinafter "SO NPOs").

Now it is prohibited to prosecute a legal entity for an administrative offence if his official or another employee was brought to administrative liability for the same violation. This rule shall be applied if a legal entity has taken all measures provided by the legislation of the Russian Federation to comply with the rules and norms.

Previously, it was a common practice to bring both organizations and their officials, who were guilty of an administrative offence, to administrative liability.

Additionally, the amount of an administrative fine for SMEs and SO NPOs will be equal to the fine for individual entrepreneurs if it is stipulated in the relevant article. If there is no administrative fine for individual entrepreneurs, a fine in the amount from half of the minimum amount to half of the maximum amount determined for the legal entity or half of the administrative fine, if it is fixed, shall be imposed.

The rules are not applied in the following cases:

When imposing an administrative penalty if the individual entrepreneurs hold administrative liability as a legal entity;
If the organization was not listed in the register of SMRs at the time of administrative offence.

Furthermore, no more than one administrative penalty may be imposed if two or more administrative offences have been identified during one supervision and liability is stipulated by one article (a part of the article) of the Code of administrative offences of the Russian Federation. If the liability is stipulated in the different articles, the most severe penalty shall be imposed.