Legislative news digest: LEGAL HOTLINE 23.07.2020

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (the supreme legislative body of Ukraine) legalized the gaming industry

On 14 July 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law of Ukraine ”On State Regulation of Activities Related to the Organization and Conduct of Gambling”. 

As provided by the Law, the main purpose of its adoption is the creation of the state-of-art and efficient regulatory framework to regulate the organization and conduct of gambling based on the comprehensive and systematic approach. Such an approach is committed to strike an optimal balance between the interests of the society, the market members and the state and also to create the conditions to fill the state budget.

An important novelty lies in the implementation of the exclusive list of gambling activities types allowed in Ukraine, in particular: 

• organization and conduct of gambling in casino gambling establishments;
• organization and conduct of casino gambling through the Internet; 
• organization and conduct of the bookmaker’s activity through the bookmaker’s centers;
• organization and conduct of the bookmaker’s activity through the Internet;
• license to organization and conduct of gambling in the slot machine halls;
• lottery issuance and holding; 
• organization and conduct of poker gambling through the Internet;
• licensing of activity on providing services in the sphere of gambling.

The Law establishes the list of requirements to the organizers of gambling, in particular, it sets out firm requirements to their financial condition to ensure their financial stability and guarantee the payment of winnings; furthermore, special requirements as to the compliance of the gambling equipment to be used for gambling with common international standards are set. 

The majority of provisions of the respective Law will become effective from the date following the date of its publication.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine allowed to use the electronic executive document

On 15 July 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Enforcement Proceedings” as to the introducing an electronic executive document that solves quite an urgent problem of using an electronic executive document.

The principal novelty of this law lies in that the authorized bodies may issue executive documents in an electronic form officially right now. This will allow to reduce the terms to refer such documents for enforcement, speed up an enforcement process, and make this process more efficient.

The legislative amendments as to the state registration of legal entities became effective

According to the notification of the South-Eastern Interregional Department of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine in the City of Dnipro of 15 July 2020, the amendments to the Law of Ukraine of 15/05/2003 No. 755-IV “On State Registration of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Organizations” that had been introduced by the Law of Ukraine of 05/12/2019 No. 340-IX “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Combating Raiding”, became effective.

As envisaged by these amendments, a member of a legal entity may enter to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Organizations information about the establishment or cancelation of the requirements as to the notarial certification of the authenticity of the member’s signature in a course of adopting a resolution (decision) on the legal entity’s affairs, and/or concerning the transaction for the share of such a member in its charter capital. 

In consideration of these provisions, the amendments envisage an extended list of applicants who may submit documents for the purpose of the state registration, in particular, such a list includes now a member of a private legal entity (except for the joint-stock company) in case it submits the documents for the purpose of the state registration of changes of legal entity data contained in the Unified State Registry,  concerning the requirement as to the notarial certification of the authenticity of such member’s signature in a course of adopting a resolution (decision) on the respective legal entity’s affairs, and/or the requirement of the notarial certification of the transaction for the share of such a member in the charter capital (share fund) of the respective legal entity, or cancelation of such requirement.

The provisions as to lease peculiarities under quarantine became effective

On 16 July 2020, the provisions of the Law of Ukraine No. 692-IX “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning State Support of Culture, Creative Industries, Tourism, Small and Medium Enterprises due to the Restrictive Measures Related to the Spread of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)” became effective.

According to the provisions of this Law, par.14 of the Final Provisions of the Civil Code of Ukraine lays down the following peculiarities of the regulation of the lease relations. Thus, starting from the date of the quarantine implementation and until its end, at the request of a lessee that conducts the business activities using leased real property, the amount of payment for use of such property (or its part) shall be reduced for the whole period when such property could not be fully used in the lessee’s business activities because of the restrictions imposed. 

At the same time, this rule shall not be applicable to those lessees that were able to use the leased real property to the full extent in order to run their business activities.

It should be noted that, at the time of the quarantine, the payment for use of the property shall not exceed an aggregated amount of costs incurred or ought to be born by the lessor for the respective period to pay the land fee, tax for the real property other than the land plot, and to pay the utilities.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the bill on the privatization of lands owned by the state bodies at the first reading

On 13 July 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted at the first reading the bill of the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning Ensuring the Right of Employees of the State Agricultural Enterprises, Institutions and Organizations to Receive a Land Plot (Share)”.

In view of promoters of the bill, the provisions of the Land Code of Ukraine that regulate the privatization of lands of the state or communal agricultural enterprises are do not determine the proper procedure for privatization and entail a great number of contradictory situations. For instance, the legislation does not still provide specific cases when such a privatization may be carried out and does not determine what area of the agriculture land may be privatized, and what area shall remain in the state or communal ownership.

In view of this, the bill provides the following peculiarities:

• only lands of state agricultural enterprises, institutions and organisations shall be subject to the privatization;
• the privatization of lands of state agricultural enterprise shall be allowed in such cases: і)in the course of privatization of the enterprise itself; іі) without any resolutions on the enterprise privatization, based on the resolution of the body governing the affairs of the enterprise; ііі) in the course of winding up the enterprise; 
• the Law determines the procedure for allocation of agricultural lands in course of the privatization of lands of the state agricultural enterprises, in particular: і) up to 40% of lands shall be allocated between employees of the enterprise and retirees among them, employees of state and communal social protection institutions; іі) up to 20% of lands shall be transferred into the ownership of the war veterans for individual farm household; ііі) no less than 40% shall be granted for the lease at land auctions (except for the cases of the privatization of the enterprise lands in connection with the privatization of the enterprise itself).

In case of the privatization of the enterprise itself, the lands remaining after the allocation between employees of the enterprise, employees of state and communal social protection institutions and war veterans, shall be granted for 50 years for lease to the business entity into which the enterprise is transformed.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the mediation bill at the first reading

On 15 July 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted at the first reading the bill of the Law of Ukraine  “On Mediation”, that is legally purported to regulate the procedure for the alternative dispute resolution. 

Thus, the bill provides that the mediation procedure will be applicable to any disputes (conflicts) resulted from the civil, family, employment, commercial or administrative relations. Moreover, the mediation procedure is also proposed to be implemented in criminal proceedings when entering into settlement agreements between the victim and the suspected, the accused, and in other areas of social relations.

It should be noted that individuals and/or legal entities will be able to apply to the mediator for the mediation purposes both before bringing any actions to a court, arbitration tribunal or international arbitration tribunal and during the judicial or arbitration proceedings, and also in course of the enforcement of a judgment or award of the arbitration tribunal or international arbitration tribunal. In this context, it is proposed to make amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the Court Fee”, whereby to provide that in case of a successful mediation on a dispute being considered by the Court, the respective party of the judicial proceedings will be returned 60% of the court fee.

The bill determines the rights and duties of the mediator and the parties, procedure for the mediation and the requirements to the mediation agreement and to a dispute (conflict) settlement agreement based on the results of the mediation procedure.