Legislative news digest: LEGAL HOTLINE 25.07.2019

Decree on the measures to counteract raidership has been signed

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed Decree No. 542/2019 “On Measures to Counteract Raidership”.

With the said Decree the President of Ukraine instructed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to develop and submit, within the period of three months, to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for consideration a draft law aimed at strengthening the protection of real rights to real estate, the rights of legal entities’ founders and counteracting raidership.

The draft law of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, designed to implement the aforementioned Decree, should contain, inter alia, the following provisions:

• introduction of additional mechanisms that will make it impossible to carry out registration actions without the knowledge of the real estate object owner, the founder (participant) of the legal entity, as well as will ensure the prompt informing of the indicated persons about the content of the registration actions performed;
• creation of a Single Register of Notarial Acts;
• strengthening the protection of information contained in the State Register of Real Property Rights to Real Estate, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Organizations from unauthorized or accidental removal thereof;
• determination of criteria for risky registration actions and introduction of their automatic monitoring.

The discount rate of the National bank of Ukraine has been reduced

The Board of the National Bank of Ukraine approved the decision to reduce the discount rate to 17.00% per annum effective July 19, 2019. The NBU reports that lowering the discount rate is a continuation of the monetary policy lightening cycle.

We remind that from 26.04.2019 to 18.07.2019 (inclusive) the discount rate of the National Bank of Ukraine amounted to 17.5%.

Fees for actions related to the protection of rights to intellectual property objects have been increased

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by Resolution No. 496 dated June 12, 2019 (hereinafter – the Resolution) changed the amount of fees for actions related to the protection of rights to intellectual property objects.

In particular, fees to register the rights to works, inventions, utility models, implementation of actions on disposal of intellectual property rights for utility models, industrial designs, trademarks, etc., are increasing.

The new rates of fees provided for by the Resolution are effective from July 19, 2019.

The people’s deputies have submitted the petition with regard to the constitutionality of squeeze-out procedure

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine received a Petition from 47 People’s Deputies of Ukraine regarding the compliance of certain provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On Joint-Stock Companies” with the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine.

In the said petition, the question is whether the Constitution of Ukraine complies with the so-called squeeze-out procedure, which provides for the possibility of forced alienation of minority shareholders’ shares in favor of a majority shareholder or majority shareholders acting jointly, provided that the majority shareholder or group of majority shareholders owns not less than 95% of the company’s shares.

We remind you that the squeeze-out procedure was introduced on March 23, 2017, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Increasing the Level of Corporate Governance in Joint-Stock Companies”.