On 16 January 2024 the State Duma adopted in the first reading the draft law No. 412669-8 “On Amendments to Chapter 4 of the Federal Law “On the Basics of State Regulation of Trade Activities in the Russian Federation” (“Draft law”). The Draft law proposes to introduce a number of changes to the regulation of companies engaged in consumer market research, provided they receive revenue in the amount of more than 30 million rubles per year.

On 3 January 2024 a new Presidential decree No. 8 (“Decree No. 8”), which supplements Presidential decrees No. 95 dated 5 March 2022 and No. 665 dated 9 September 2023 regarding the regulation of special accounts of type “C” and type “I”, entered into force.

On 1 January 2024 amendments to the Patent Regulations to the Eurasian Patent Convention (EAPC) came into force, affecting various aspects related to the implementation of administrative procedures aimed at obtaining a Eurasian patent for invention and industrial design.

On 12 December 2023, the President of the Russian Federation signed Federal Law № 571-FZ to ratify the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Sultanate of Oman on the Elimination of Double Taxation in respect of Taxes on Income and Prevention of Avoidance and Evasion of Taxation and the Protocol thereto (hereinafter - the “Agreement”).

Subject to ratification of the Agreement by Oman and mutual notification of the parties of the ratification procedures by the end of 2023, the Agreement will enter into force as early as 1 January 2024.

On 19 December 2023 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation issued Resolution № 59-P/2023 “On the Case Concerning the Verification of the Constitutionality of Paragraph Eight of Part Two of Article 59 of the Labour Code of the Russian Federation in Connection with the Complaint of Citizen E. A. Selkova” (hereinafter - the “Resolution”).

On 18 December 2023 the President of the Russian Federation issued decree No. 958 “On Amendments to Certain Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation”, according to which restrictions on certain types of deals with persons from “unfriendly” countries were extended.

The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has drafted amendments to Presidential decree No. 81 of March 1, 2022 (the "Decree"), which would extend the special procedure for transactions established by the Decree to transactions involving intellectual property. The draft is currently at the stage of anti-corruption expertise.

In accordance with the current version of the Decree, certain types of transactions with persons from "unfriendly" countries may be carried out only on the basis of permits issued by the Government Commission for Monitoring the Implementation of Foreign Investments in the Russian Federation (the "Government Commission").

According to the Group-IB research, last year the amount of publicly released databases of Russian companies six times outnumbered those unlawfully made public in 2021. At the same time, special provisions, regulating liability for personal data leaks, are not foreseen neither in the Code of Administrative Offenses of Russia nor in the Criminal Code.

Therefore, on 4 December 2023, the draft laws No. 502104-8 “On Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation” (“draft law No. 502104-8") and No. 502113-8 “On Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation” (“draft law No. 502113-8”), providing toughening liability for personal data leakage, were submitted to the State Duma.

According to the explanatory notes to these draft laws, currently existing liability is disproportional and incomparable to the potential social harm which can personal data leakage result in.