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The first half of 2012 has been low key in terms of the further development of IP legislation. That said, work has continued on the amendments to the Russian Civil Code, with the corresponding draft law passed in its second reading.

Rostec up for sale

The Russian President and Government have recently been talking more about the need to optimisegroups of taxes, with high-quality economic growth depending on this. In particular, Vladimir Putin recently stressed that Russia must make its tax system more attractive for investors and competitive in comparison with the other countries of the Customs Union, even despite a risk of a shortfall in budget revenues. Without doubt, such initiatives of the Russian authorities cannot fail to cause investors to be optimistic. However, to evaluate whether the initiatives are realistic, and to assess the tax risks of business in the current year, it is helpful to look at the results of the past year.

On March 15, 2012, the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Arbitration Court (SAC) heard the Aelita Software
Corporation case, in which the corporation, having won a case against the tax authorities, sought to recover 2.89 million rubles from those authorities in legal costs for its representatives’ fees. The appeal and cassation courts refused to grant an award for the costs in full, restricting the amount to 100,000 rubles. The same line of authority had developed in similar court decisions — the courts limited the amount of costs to be recovered to one twentieth or thirtieth of
the actual amount. However, the Presidium of the SAC on March 15 set a precedent, awarding the taxpayer its costs in full.

Despite the obvious advantages for owners of commercial real estate to engage management companies, the issues inevitably arise of apportioning liability and potential risks between an owner of a building and a management company and of how to reduce these risks.