Monitoring of the Federal Legislation dated 3.09.2008

Direction of the Central Bank of Russia No. 2052-U of August 12, 2008 on Amending Instructions of the Central Bank of Russia No. 117-I of June 15, 2004 on the Procedure for Submitting by Residents and Non-Residents to Authorised Banks the Documents and Information in Carrying Out Currency Transactions, as Well as on the Procedure for Recording Foreign Exchange Transactions and for Formalising Passports of the Deals by Authorised Banks

The provisions that concern making foreign exchange transactions with the use of special bank accounts are deleted from the Instructions. Thus, the procedure for presenting documents and information in making foreign exchange transactions does not extend now to all foreign exchange transactions made by resident credit institutions on their own behalf and for their own account, as well as by resident natural persons who are not individual businessmen. Previously, this procedure extended to these foreign exchange transactions, if they were made by using special bank accounts. The documents required for formalizing the passport of a deal (PS) shall be concurrently submitted. The bank where the PS is formalized (the PS bank) shall specify the date when this documents are received from a resident on both copies of the PS or of the PS which is re-formalised. The list of data to be included into an application for transfer of a contract (credit agreement) from the PS bank to another bank for settlement services has been expanded. It is now also necessary to cite the name of the bank whereto it is planned to transfer a contract (credit agreement). The procedure for filling out the report on foreign exchange transactions has been also specified. The Direction shall enter into effect upon the expiry of 10 days after the date of official publication thereof in the "Vestnik Banka Rossii". It is registered by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation on August 27, 2008 under registration No. 12192

Letter of the Department of Tax and Customs Tariff Policy of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation No. 03-05-06-03/33 of August 21, 2008

It deals with the state duty's payment for issuance of copies of files of a criminal case to the accused person or the convict. Copies of files of a criminal case may be issued to the accused person on the basis of his/her application in writing and for own account thereof. After delivering the judgment of conviction solely one document shall be issued thereto, that is, a copy of the judgment of conviction. With this, the state duty shall not be paid for issuance of copies of files of a criminal case in the course of criminal court proceedings, as well as for issuance of the judgment of conviction. At the same time, in the event of repeated issuance of a copy of the judgment of conviction or copies of other files of a criminal case, the state duty in the amount of 20 roubles shall be paid or, if the number of pages exceeds 10, it shall be paid at the rate of 2 roubles per each page of a file. Besides, taking into consideration the legal proposition of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, courts of law are entitled on the basis of the payer's property status to reduce the rate of the state duty to be paid in respect of cases tried by the said courts down to complete release from this duty.