12,000 Obsolete Regulations for Businesses Repealed by the Russian Government

As part of a large-scale reform of control and supervisory activities known as the “regulatory guillotine,” Russian authorities have canceled more than 12,000 acts, most of which contained outdated Soviet-era requirements for national enterprises, according to Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Office of the Cabinet of Ministers Dmitry Grigorenko in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper. 

“More than 12,000 acts were “guillotined,” accounting for more than 90% of all acts bearing mandatory obligations, the majority of which were Soviet-era papers that remained in effect. Many of them had restrictions that appear absurd now. Everyone is familiar with the example of the necessary omelet thickness. However, there are several examples of similar stories. For example, old laws required that crumbs be brushed from shelves with specific brushes while cleaning offices “Grigorenko explained.

He went on to say that the majority of the canceled acts  had “unfounded regulations” and were a barrier to business. At the same time, they did little to safeguard citizens from potential abuse.

“Of course, we couldn’t just eliminate the criteria since that would result in a legal vacuum. The former regulation was replaced with a new one that was written with current circumstances in mind. Almost 450 acts were adopted as part of this endeavor. As you can see, this statistic is much lower than the number of papers that have been repealed “The Deputy Prime Minister went on to clarify.

Previously, Grigorebko stated that the authorities had eliminated 33% of the required standards that the company had to meet because they were either superfluous or overlapping.

President Vladimir Putin approved legislation reforming control and regulatory operations, called the regulatory guillotine, in July 2020.

The reform of supervisory and regulatory operations calls for the elimination of all regulatory business requirements that have not been updated and brought up to date by 2021. All criteria that businesses would be required to achieve would be included in a separate public registry and reviewed for relevance at least once every five years. In addition, the reform will repeal all legal acts and resolutions passed during the early years of Soviet rule that have persisted to this day.