The Law Firm "YUST" took part in the work session of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia and the PPP Development Center

A working section of the focus group for elaboration of suggestions on improving the mechanism of private initiative during execution of concession agreements was held in Moscow on November10 of 2014. The Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation was the organizer of the event.

The session was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, of private investors, of consultancy firms specializing in the PPP projects.

Advocate, Doctor at Law Anna Kotova-Smolenskaya, Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", and Associate Dmitry Zhubrin represented the Firm at the event.

The focus group members discussed the amendments to the Federal Law “On concession agreements” concerning the endowing of a potential concessionary with the right of initiating the execution of a concession agreement (the so-called “private initiative”), which enter into force on May 1^st of 2015. The most attention was given to the most important problems, on which the practical demand for the private initiative mechanism is dependent – the acceptability of granting preferences to the investor, who initiated the execution of the concession agreement, in the course of the competition of concessionaries, the possible ways to compensate for the risks of the public and the private partners. The experts in the course of the session also made suggestions concerning the content of the resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation on approval of the form of the suggestion to execute a concession agreement.

The suggestions of the focus group members will be taken into consideration in the course of elaboration by the Government of the Russian Federation of the legal acts aimed at the specification of the private initiative provisions of the Federal Law “On concession agreements”.