Amendments to Federal Law “On concession agreements” allowing an interested entity complying with the relevant legal requirements to initiate the conclusion of a concession agreement by sending a proposal in the established form, along with the draft agreement attached, to the authorized body, enter into force on May 1, 2015.

The draft Resolution of the Russian Government “On approving the form of proposal for concluding a concession agreement on initiative of a private party,” establishing the procedure for proposing initiatives, has been prepared by the Russian Government in pursuance of the said law.

According to the draft, the initiator and the initiative must comply with several requirements. Among other things, the relevant proposal must address the following issues:

•  Confirmation of the initiator’s status (absence of decision on liquidation or cessation of activity, absence of court ruling on commencement of bankruptcy proceedings in respect to the initiator, absence of arrears on mandatory payments to the state budget, etc.), availability of funds or possibility of obtaining them in the amount of no less than 5% of the sum of investments claimed in the draft concession agreement, compliance of the initiative with government programs, etc.;
• Information on the initiator’s experience in implementing similar projects and methods of ensuring the fulfillment of the initiator’s obligations under the concession agreement need to be specified;
• Information on the initiative must be provided, including a brief description, motivation/timeliness, goals and objectives of the planned project, financial feasibility study of the project, information about property created and/or reconstructed within the concession agreement, information on availability of the project documentation, characteristics of the land parcels and other information.

Pursuant to the draft Resolution, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation is charged with developing methodological recommendations on calculating the criteria and showings of the efficiency assessment of concluding the concession agreements.

Draft Resolution of the Russian Government “On approving the form of proposal for concluding a concession agreement on initiative of a private party” (as regards establishing requirements for the initiator and its proposal with provision of the confirming documents)

Additional notes

Should any questions arise in connection with the above or if you need any additional materials, please contact Pavel Karpunin or Rimma Leshceva, St. Petersburg Office of Capital Legal Services.

This Information letter keeps the clients of Capital Legal Services and other interested parties abreast of information that may, to any extent, affect their activity or cater to their particular interests. The opinions and commentaries expressed in this information letter shall not be deemed as legal opinions and do not cancel the need to obtain legal advice or legal opinion on separate issues.