“Consent of the copyright holder is not needed”: the Ministry of Industry and Trade approved the list of goods for parallel imports to Russia

The Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia has approved a list of goods allowed for the so-called parallel imports into the country.

The corresponding order was published on the official Internet portal of legal information.

The document will come into force on May 7.

The approved list includes 56 product groups.

We are talking about original foreign products, which can now be imported into Russia without the consent of the copyright holders.

The list, for example, includes cosmetics, perfumes, clothing, building materials, electronics, equipment, spare parts and cars.

The Russian government decided to legalize parallel imports at the end of March.

As explained in the Cabinet, in the face of external restrictions, such a measure will help to provide the domestic market with demanded goods and will help stabilize prices for them.

“The purpose of this mechanism is to satisfy the demand for goods containing the results of intellectual activity.

Until now, they could not be sold on the territory of our country without the permission of the copyright holder ... The approach will make it possible to guarantee the supply of goods to our country, including despite the unfriendly actions of foreign politicians, ”said Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

Recall that since the end of February 2022, the United States, the European Union and a number of other states continue to impose new sanctions against Russia.

This is how the West reacts to the conduct of a military special operation in Ukraine.

In total, more than 10.1 thousand restrictive measures have already been introduced against Moscow - more than against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Myanmar and Cuba combined.

This is stated in the materials of the global sanctions tracking database Castellum.AI.

Restrictions, in particular, affected the banking industry, the energy sector, aviation and trade.

Almost half of the country's gold and foreign exchange reserves (worth $300 billion) were also frozen, and many international companies announced their withdrawal from the Russian Federation.

However, due to parallel imports, about 200 departed brands will be able to return to Russia.

This was previously reported by the government portal "Explain.rf".

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Nikolay Vavilov, a specialist in Total Research's strategic research department, told RT that the current shortage of foreign goods and components in many sectors of the economy has led to a speculative rise in prices.

Thus, the annual inflation rate in Russia has already exceeded 17%, and by the end of 2022 it may reach 18-23%, as evidenced by the data of Rosstat and the Central Bank.

At the same time, the legalization of parallel imports will partly alleviate the situation with prices, Vavilov believes.

“Now in a big deficit, for example, spare parts for foreign cars.

This problem can be solved just with the help of parallel imports - spare parts are simply imported into Russia from another state through the so-called interlayer company.

Moreover, according to the new regulatory legal acts, the consent of the brand owner and the copyright holder is not required for such imports, ”the expert noted.

In addition to saturating the domestic market with the necessary goods, the legalization of parallel imports will help increase competition among sellers.

This, in turn, should also have a positive impact on pricing and put pressure on inflation.

Polina Gusyatnikova, senior managing partner of the law firm PG Partners, shared this opinion in a conversation with RT.

“In addition to the official distributor, alternative sellers will appear, and the more the product is on the market, the lower its price.

For copyright holders, this is, of course, a dead end situation.

Purely theoretically, they can file lawsuits, but in practice this will lead nowhere.

These claims should be considered in the Russian legal field, where parallel imports are allowed, respectively, no one violates the rights of copyright holders, ”explained Gusyatnikova.

Moreover, according to her, those who will sell goods to Russia in small quantities without the permission of the copyright holder will also be able to avoid problems.

As the expert explained, such deliveries are quite difficult to track.

Therefore, in order to prevent the goods from entering the territory of Russia, the right holder would have to completely stop trading with all his partners.

“It is worth adding that as a result of the development of parallel imports, not only cheaper, but also higher quality goods may appear on the Russian market.

It has long been known that some manufacturers for the domestic market make goods of better quality than those intended for export to Russia.

Thus, it becomes possible to bring higher quality original products,” concluded Gusyatnikova.