The objects of housing and communal services will add bidding

The objects of housing and communal services will add bidding



A government bill has been submitted to the State Duma, tightening the procedure for the privatization of housing and communal services. The changes are aimed at closing loopholes that allow such property to be transferred to "private owners" bypassing the requirements of the legislation on bidding and transfer of investment obligations. The project assumes obligatory observance of these procedures when selling housing and communal services by unitary enterprises and state-owned companies - now such requirements formally do not concern them. It is assumed that the amendments will provide non-discriminatory access for businesses to housing and communal services - according to experts, now there are frequent cases of abuse in their sale.

The draft law introduced by the government refers to the privatization of heat and hot water supply facilities (cold water supply infrastructure is not subject to privatization) owned by companies with a state share of more than 50% or state and municipal unitary enterprises (SUE and MUP). The amendments essentially close a loophole that allows uncontrolled transfer of such objects into private hands without bidding.

As explained to Kommersant in the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), which prepared the bill, the legislation on heat and water supply provides for two types of transfer of housing and communal services - under a lease or concession. But they can be fixed on the right of economic management or operational management for state unitary enterprises and municipal unitary enterprises, and the law on privatization, which regulates the methods of transferring housing and communal services to “private owners” and imposing existing investment obligations on the new owner, does not apply to transactions for the sale of such property. As follows from the explanatory note to the document, this exception actually became a way to circumvent the law - housing and communal services facilities were assigned to a unitary enterprise, and then sold "to a specific person without following competitive procedures and establishing operational and investment obligations in relation to such property." After the adoption of the bill, transactions for the sale of housing and communal services by state and municipal unitary enterprises will fall under the law on privatization.

The amendments also introduce the obligation of state-owned companies to hold auctions or tenders when selling heat and water supply facilities to private organizations. They are not covered by the law on privatization, but such a requirement is planned to be included in the law on the protection of competition - by analogy with the rules on concluding lease or sale agreements for state property, since in fact such companies are controlled by the state. The new owner will also assume obligations for the reconstruction, modernization and operation of networks. As noted in the FAS, the measures “are aimed at ensuring non-discriminatory access to state property in the housing and communal services sector,” and securing the obligation of the new owner to invest in the object is to protect consumers.

Oleg Moskvitin, head of the antimonopoly practice at the Muranov, Chernyakov & Partners Bar Association, notes that cases of alienation of housing and communal services objects that were on the balance sheet of unitary enterprises into private hands are “far from isolated and widespread throughout Russia - this is also confirmed by judicial practice, when lawsuits of prosecutors invalidated the transfer of assets of housing and communal services to private companies without saving investment and operational obligations. He sees the idea of ​​the bill in establishing barriers to abuse - even in case of violation of the requirements, it will be much easier to challenge transactions and protect the interests of citizens, but now this is a difficult process, during which it is necessary to prove that violators have circumvented the law. Pavel Dmitriev, a lawyer at Kulik & Partners Law.Economics, adds that the obligation to conduct tenders when selling housing and communal services by state-owned companies will increase the transparency of the process - now such property can be sold “in private law through the conclusion of contracts without tendering and according to the internal rules of the organization itself.”

Evgenia Kryuchkova



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