Legislative news digest: LEGAL HOTLINE 03.09.2020

The minimum wage increased from September 1, 2020

The President of Ukraine signed the Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On State Budget of Ukraine for 2020” No. 822-IX, which provides for an increase of the minimum wage from September 1, 2020 to UAH 5,000.00 per month and to UAH 29.20 UAH per hour.

The increase of the minimum wage will influence on determination of the maximum assessment base and the minimum insurance payment for compulsory state social insurance.

There also will be an increase in the amounts of penalties for violations of the labor legislation tied to the minimum wage, in particular, for admission of an employee to work without conclusion of an employment agreement, delays in payment of wages, and other payments to employees established by the labor legislation, etc.

The procedure of formation and maintenance of the license register has been updated

The new Procedure of Formation and Maintenance of the License Register, approved by Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 755 dated August 26, 2020 (hereinafter – the “Procedure”) entered into force on August 29, 2020.

The new Procedure enhanced the list of data to be entered in the license register. In particular, now the list includes the licensee’s place of carrying out of the type of activity subject to licensing, a material and technical base used for this purpose (where its availability is required by the law). In addition, the license register will contain the following pursuant to the new Procedure:

• information on appeals against decisions of licensing authorities filed to the court by the licensee;
• information on notification of the specially authorized licensing authority on the acceptance of licensees’ complaints against actions (omission) of the licensing authority (if the decision of the licensing authority has been suspended, also information on such suspension);
• information on the decision of the licensing authority on cancellation of a decision previously taken by such authority in the result of consideration of a complaint against the decision or on the basis of a court decision.

Such changes will increase the transparency of the license register and facilitate licensees’ activities.

The new procedure for information exchange between the State Financial Monitoring Service and the Ministry of Justice enters into force

The updated Procedure for Information Exchange between the State Financial Monitoring Service (hereinafter – the “SFMS”) and the Ministry of Justice came into force on August 28, 2020. The purpose of the Procedure is to increase the efficiency of supervision over compliance of primary financial monitoring entities with the requirements of the legislation on prevention and counteraction to legalization (laundering) of the proceeds of crime, financing of terrorism, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The Procedure was approved by the Joint Order of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice No. 462/2602/5 dated July 31, 2020.

Thus, the SFMS provides the Ministry of Justice with information on the efficiency of measures taken by primary financial monitoring entities. In particular, it is about statistical data on financial transactions subject to financial monitoring, information on registration of primary financial monitoring entities in the SFMS, and the list of de-registered entities, as well as identified elements of possible violations of the legislation in this area.

In its turn, the Ministry of Justice is required to provide the SFMS with information on identified violations of the legislation in this area by primary financial monitoring entities (as well as summarized information on compliance by such entities with the requirements of the legislation) and measures taken in response to violations in order to eliminate them and/or prevent further activities from such practices, as well as information (if any) on termination of activities of primary financial monitoring entities for their de-registration.

The information exchanged by the SFMS and the Ministry of Justice will be used exclusively for official purposes and may not be disclosed.

We should remind that primary financial monitoring entities include, in particular, banks, insurance carriers, payment organizations, commodity exchanges, professional participants of the stock market, audit firms, attorney bureaus and companies, notaries.

Procedure for sale of seized assets at electronic auctions has been supplemented

The Procedure for Sale of Seized Assets at Electronic Auctions, approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 719 dated September 27, 2017, was supplemented with a new clause on independent execution of a court decision on special seizure of assets (in accordance with  the procedure established by the Article 100 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine).

In case such a court decision is executed independently, the National Agency of Ukraine for Finding, Tracing, and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes distributes the funds received from the sale of such assets within 3 working days by transferring the amount of reimbursement of damages from the crime determined by the court to the aggrieved party, civil plaintiff. The remaining amount is transferred to the state budget.

If the amount of funds received from the sale of assets is not enough to reimburse the aggrieved party, civil plaintiff in full, the reimbursement is provided in proportion to the amount due to each of them.