The Federation Council approves a law allowing NGOs to make decisions in absentia

10.06.2020

Furthermore, the law has outlined the cancellation of NGO audits until 2021 and increased payments for children.

On 8 June, the Federation Council approved the federal law (№ 166-ФЗ) “On amendments to certain Russian Federation legislative acts in order to adopt urgent measures, aimed at ensuring sustainable economic development and preventing the consequences of a new coronavirus infection spike”.

The law allows NGOs to run absentee voting, cancel mandatory audits for 2020 and introduced an increased level of child maintenance.

Voting in Absentia

This law, related to NGOs, is supplemented by the following rule: “In 2020 the decisions of the NGOs supreme governing bodies can be made by absentee voting, regardless of whether the NGOs statute contains the procedure for absentee voting”.

NGOs can make decisions in absentia on the following issues:

–          Formation of NGO bodies and the early termination of their powers

–          Approval of an audit organisation or an individual auditor for an NGO (this applies for those organisations whose annual accounting statements require a mandatory audit check)

NGO audits

Until 1 January 2021, the federal law on audit activities (Paragraph 3, Part 1, Article 5), which requires a mandatory annual audit of NGO financial statements, has been suspended. Therefore, these organisations will not be required to carry out an audit in 2020, unless they were due to start the mandatory audit before 1 May 2020.

Payments for Children

The federal law on “State benefits for citizens with children” has been amended as follows:

–          The monthly childcare allowance will increase to 6,752 roubles

–          The maximum amount of benefit is 13,504 roubles per month, whereas it had previously been 6,000 roubles

These regulations came into force 1 June 2020.

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2020/06/10/sovet-federatsii-nko-zaochnye-resheniya-zakon/