OREANDA-NEWS. August 11, 2014. Alexander Ermolenko, FBK partner heading FBK Legal Corporate Practice, took part in the panel discussion of the Internet Initiatives Development Fund.

The Fund experts focused their attention on the changes in the Russian corporate law coming into effect on 1 September 2014 and their effects for the internet industry. The panel also discussed the issues of legislative control of new business processes emerging in the industry, in particular crowdsourcing and crowdinvesting.

In Alexander’s opinion, the legislative initiatives as such, including those under the panel discussion, are not as significant for the internet business as the practice of their application by the courts and the administrative procedures.

“For years we have been observing the adjustments of the legal system to the needs of businesses, and inter alia as specific as the online business, taking place. I believe, it is more important for the industry now what the administrative burden on business is, what practice of the economic cases is generated by courts,” noted the expert. – It is in the improvement of judicial and administrative procedures and the simplification of processes where the hidden reserves are available for the growth of internet entrepreneurship”.

Head of the FBK Legal Corporate Practice also pointed out that the restructuring of the judicial system, and specifically, the transfer of SAC functions to the Supreme Court, did not contribute to making the judicial procedures simpler and more understandable for the participants, to reducing the terms of processing and to generating a single judicial policy on economic cases.

The meeting was participated by a number of the leading Russian companies funding the startups, such as RUSNANO, Rambler, Yandex, Rostelecom, representatives of RAEC, the leading Russian lawyers, internet entrepreneurs.

Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF) — is a public organization aiming to promote the internet business in Russia; it provides financing and expert resources to the sectoral startups at their early stages. Among the IIFD’s priorities are educational, legislative and infrastructural projects which will contribute to the development of a full-fledged market of small and medium internet businesses in Russia.