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The bill was introduced on May 7, but the war between the parties began a long time ago: tenants demanded an early adoption of the law, insisting on the possibility of termination of contracts without penalties and with the return of a security deposit for any company whose business suffered from a pandemic with a decrease in revenue by more than 50 % Landlords promised that if the document was adopted in this form, the markets would expect a “collapse and a series of bankruptcies”  As a result, a number of significant changes were made to the bill: only small and medium-sized business tenants remained its defendants (thus, it cannot be applied to more than 75% of tenants), before termination, the tenant must request a discount from the lessor, and apply for termination it is possible until October 1, 2020.

"The adoption of the bill is an attempt to help, in particular, in the settlement of relations between tenants and tenants, as well as stimulating the tenants to impose their obligations to conclude agreements to reduce rents" (speech on making amendments to article 19 of anti-crisis law No. 98-FZ of 1 April 2020) This applies only to lease agreements, where the tenants are SMEs operating in the most affected areas.

Big business and retail remain outside the scope (and thank God, landlords will say, but large tenants are unlikely to agree with them). In general, we see the desire of the state to help negotiate the parties to lease relations, and this is a positive moment. 

On the other hand, anti-crisis legislation is adopted in a hurry, which entails some contradictions or understatements, the presence of which may complicate the achievement of the goals for which these legal acts are designed.

For example, questions of activity in the most affected areas - how to determine whether it is possible to use auxiliary codes based on the basic code of OKVED or to take into account auxiliary codes? There is some confusion with the very list of such industries: Government Decree No. 434 establishing this list dated April 3, 2020 was adopted for other purposes - to resolve issues of credit holidays, etc. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in its reviews hastily tries to clarify some controversial issues, but not all issues can be covered (and should it?).

All this is the subject of future disputes, which, of course, will intensify in the near future after the full resumption of the courts (they are already returning to the normal mode of work and consideration of cases).

I don’t think that this bill ultimately aims to support one side — tenants or landlords, the final version is intended to demonstrate a balanced approach. But the fact that these norms will be leverage for tenants in negotiations with tenants to reduce rents is obvious. Therefore, the activation of disputes, from my point of view, is inevitable, although the bill is aimed at trying to minimize them. "- Igor Chumachenko explains.

You can find the full version of the article here: https://www.cre.ru/content/upload/journal/item/file/15905715155451.pdf