JSCs and LLCs will be able to conduct corporate procedures remotely

Amendments to the federal laws "On Joint-Stock Companies" and "On Limited Liability Companies" came into force on 1 March 2025. These amendments establish rules for holding general meetings of owners remotely (Federal Law No. 287-FZ of 8 August 2024).

The main criteria that must be met include:

• the ability to reliably identify a person participating in the meeting remotely;
• giving this person an opportunity to participate in the discussion and voting.

The following issues also deserve special mention:

• remote meetings can be held with or without identification of the location of the participants' in-person presence;
• live broadcast of the meeting is mandatory, and the recording must be kept along with the meeting minutes for a specified period;
• reliable identification of a person participating in the meeting, as a general rule, is made using an enhanced electronic signature;
• a remote meeting that could not be held due to significant technical problems arising when use of electronic or other technical means is deemed invalid.

Besides, changes to corporate legislation allow for a combination of in-person and absentee voting at general meetings. It is now possible to fill out and send voting ballots in electronic form.

Remote meeting formats and hybrid voting formats are also available for boards of directors.

Note! The use of these tools for corporate procedures requires the availability of relevant provisions in the company's articles of association, as well as sufficient time and organisational and technical resources.

In our opinion, these changes to corporate legislation have loomed large on the business agenda for a long time. Businesses need a digital format for decision-making by key company executives, especially when it comes to cross-border interactions.

We do not expect these innovations to be introduced all at once at annual meetings in 2025, but we are confident that companies should speed up preparation for legal, organisational and technical use of these tools as soon as possible.

Unicon VAT team will be happy to take care of the de-registration process.

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