information about their beneficiaries

After Russian Railways, energy companies and Rosatom confused hundreds of thousands of their clients with requests for beneficiaries with reference to the government and the threat of breaking contracts, the authorities considered it necessary to clarify the requirements for state-owned companies. As Kommersant learned, on January 13, an explanation from Igor Sechin appeared, from which it follows that the requirements for disclosing owners do not apply to clients. Another relaxation: suppliers and contractors from public companies are allowed to provide information only on those shareholders who own more than 5% of the shares.

As sources in the railway industry told Kommersant, on Monday Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin sent a letter to Minister of Transport Igor Levitin and President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, in which, in fact, he called the monopoly’s response to the government’s demands to disclose information about contractors inadequate. “I ask you not to take the situation to the point of absurdity and not to confuse pre-contract work on selecting contractors with the conclusion of public offer agreements and similar cases when, in accordance with the law, pre-contract work with specific contractors is not initially provided for,” says the document, a copy of which is available to Kommersant ". The Deputy Prime Minister advised Igor Levitin to “explain to JSC Russian Railways the procedure for fulfilling the government’s instructions.”

We are talking about the situation that Kommersant talked about on January 16: Russian Railways, in response to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s order of December 28, sent requests for disclosure of beneficiaries to all shippers, threatening to terminate contracts if they refused. Now it turns out that the prime minister had nothing of the kind in mind. However, both JSC Russian Railways and other state-owned companies affected by the prime minister’s order could understand this no earlier than January 13: then a corresponding clarification was issued, also signed by Igor Sechin.

Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Igor Sechin (left)
Photo: Dmitry Azarov, Kommersant

Kommersant managed to get acquainted with the document. It follows from it that beneficiaries need to be disclosed to clients under agreements that “are not transactions for administrative and economic purposes concluded in order to ensure the functioning of a legal entity, as well as exchange transactions.” In addition, the requirement for public joint stock companies, which may have thousands of small shareholders, has been clarified. Such counterparties may disclose beneficiaries of more than 5% of the shares. The same rule applies to “world-class foreign public companies.” The letter also clarifies the requirement for the content of information about beneficiaries: it must include data that allows identification of these people - this is TIN, passport data, etc. At the same time, Igor Sechin asks the relevant departments to compare data about the beneficiaries of the OJSC with officially disclosed ones and in the case Discrepancies should be reported to the Federal Financial Markets Service.

In fact, not only Russian Railways, but also many other state-owned companies, including energy companies and Rosatom structures, literally understood the prime minister’s order (in fact, only Gazprom, which had no intention of disturbing customers, remained completely calm already on January 13). Interfax, citing sources, reported that they planned to appeal to the government with a request to soften the requirements and deadlines for their implementation. However, Kommersant was able to reliably find out only about one such attempt, and it was made by the head of JSC Russian Railways (according to Kommersant’s sources in the government, this was one of the reasons for Igor Sechin’s rather sharp rebuke).

Deputy Prime Ministers of Russia Igor Sechin (left) and Alexander Zhukov (right)
Photo: Dmitry Azarov, Kommersant

In a letter to Vladimir Putin dated January 5 (Kommersant has a copy), Vladimir Yakunin speaks of the need to change and clarify the conditions for fulfilling the order. The top manager points out that the explanations received by Russian Railways from the Ministry of Transport in a number of points diverge from the text of the instructions. In particular, the Ministry of Transport has set deadlines for providing information on counterparties until January 29, and the Prime Minister - until January 10 (yesterday, Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov refused to clarify to Kommersant which of the deadlines is valid). In addition, the Ministry of Transport asked to provide information for 2010-2011, while the order refers only to 2011. Another remark is related to the discrepancy between the circle of people who must provide information on income: the Ministry of Transport writes about relatives, assistants and advisers of top managers, although the prime minister does not directly require this. Finally, Vladimir Yakunin asked the Prime Minister to “instruct the relevant authorities to develop measures aimed at ensuring the protection of the requested information,” since this data is confidential in accordance with the Law “On Personal Data.”

Russian Railways declined to comment yesterday. Elena Sakhnova from VTB Capital believes that “it was better to clarify the order late than never.” But, the analyst clarifies, in the eyes of foreign investors, “the amendments to the instructions indicate that the government does not always make thoughtful and balanced decisions.”

Alexander Panchenko

Clients of state-owned companies were exempt from disclosure