On May 5, 2020, a law comes into force that establishes the procedure for experimenting on the use of employment in electronic form without their duplicating on paper documents by certain employers and employees. More detailed rules for experimenting will be set out in the regulations on conducting the experiment, which must be approved by the Russian Ministry of Labor.

Deputies of the Moscow city Duma introduced a bill suggesting adding provisions for remote work to the Labour Code. The ground for making such amendments are the difficulties in formalising transfer of employees to remote work which the employers faced during the pandemic.

Lawyers of the Lidings’ Criminal Defense Practice have successfully defended client charged with tax evasion (for 60 million rubles) and large-scale fraud (for 10 million rubles). The project lasted more than two and a half years led by the firm’s partner and attorney Stepan Guzey. Despite intense opposition from the Prosecutor’s Office of Novgorod Region and introduction of restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19 the criminal case was terminated during pre-trial investigation.

In its recent Ruling, the Russian Constitutional court clarified the provisions of the Labor Code regarding the conclusion of a fixed-term employment contract with persons who are employed to perform certain work when the date of completion of work cannot be determined by a specific date (paragraph 8, part 1 of article 59 of the Labor Code).

Best Lawyers, an international legal directory annually identifying the most prominent lawyers around the world by analyzing their professional skills and achievements during the year, once again lists Lidings’ experts among the best lawyers in Russia.

On 27 May 2020 WIPO launched new online business service, WIPO PROOF, that provides tamper-proof evidence of the existence at a point in time of any digital file, including data sets, in any format.

16 May 2020 the Russian Government enacted the rules on online sales and delivery of medicines (the Rules). According to the Rules, online sales of medicines are allowed. The exceptions are: RX medicines, narcotic and psychotropic medicines, and medicines containing more than 25% ethyl alcohol.

The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted the Law¹ in the third reading which provides the opportunity to require early termination of leases for tenants affected by the deteriorating economic situation resulting from the spread of a new coronavirus infection. The final version of the Law in this part has undergone multiple fundamental changes.