Official seals may be cancelled to make doing business in Russia easier

The State Duma of the Russian Federation is considering draft bill no. 636191-6 to eliminate official seals for businesses.

According to the draft bill’s authors, official round seals for business documents are outdated. Although business documents are not necessary original if they have an official seal, businesses, lenders, attorneys, public authorities, and others still put credence in the seals to determine a document’s authenticity.

The draft bill proposes to replace the round seal with more up-to-date types of identification: holographic seals, special forms from companies, and electronic signatures.  The new approaches are gaining popularity, and even public authorities accept electronic signatures.  According to the proposed legislation, the elimination of the seal would not be obligatory, and the other specified types of identification would not be mandatory.

Recent amendments to Russian legislation witnessed the decreasing role of official seals.  Both Federal Law no. 100-FZ, dated 7 May 2013, paragraphs 4 and 5 of Part I, and article 1153 of Part Three of the Civil Code change the certification needed on powers of attorney.

The proposed amendment would help to decrease expenses and would have a positive impact on the position of the Russian Federation in the “Doing Business” rating of the World Bank.

According to the 2015 “Doing Business” report, the Russian Federation ranked 62 out of 189 countries, an increase of 30 notches.  Its success was a result of the 2014 reforms that simplified the registration of legal entities, including the cancellation of the need for charter capital when setting up a company and notifying tax authorities when opening banking accounts with off-budget funds. It is noteworthy that these reforms were in accordance with the roadmap titled The optimization of procedures regarding public registration for legal and private entities (Russian Federation decree N 317-р, dated 7 March 2013).

A copy of the draft bill (in Russian) appears on the ART DE LEX website at http://artdelex.ru/files/news/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%20%E2%84%96636191-6.pdf