A bill has been submitted to the State Duma obliging large foreign IT companies to open full-fledged representative offices in Russia. State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein told Interfax about this. At the time of this writing, there was no information on the bill in  the State Duma database .

According to the initiative, Russian branches will have to open foreign companies with a daily audience in the Russian Federation of 500 thousand people. These representations will be held liable for violations of Russian legislation by the IT giants.

The bill obliges companies to register a personal account on the Roskomnadzor website to interact with government bodies of the Russian Federation. Companies must also place an “electronic form for Russians’ requests” on their websites. 

The same requirements will apply to “hosting providers, operators of advertising systems and organizers of information dissemination on the Internet,” writes Interfax.

In case of refusal to open a legal entity in Russia, foreign companies face a number of penalties – from a ban on search results and restrictions on accepting payments from Russians to a complete blocking on the territory of the Russian Federation.

(C)MEDUZA 2021