Almost every day during last week there appeared a great number of news concerning the fate of the Trade Law.
On Monday the government presidium considered the updated bill On Trade. Now it is a compromise variant keeping the balance between the retailers’ and suppliers’ interests: the networks are forbidden to accept bonuses for “entrance”, but the marks up will not be limited and the domination threshold will not be set for them.
Victor Khristenko, the head of Minpromtorg, and Victor Zubkov, the first Vice-Premier, as a whole managed to repulse the agricultural lobbyists’ attack against the trade networks. The version of the bill On Trade referred to the State Duma started to contain the minimum restrictions of the relations between the suppliers and the product sellers.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minster, signed an order to pass the bill of the Federal Law On the Basis of the State Control over the Trade Activity in the Russian Federation for considering in the State Duma.
The fight between the sellers, suppliers, officials and deputies for the Trade Law ended with quite an unexpected result: on its way from the government presidium to the State Duma the bill received an article about the domination threshold, which according to the emotional words of a market participant “gives up the development of the network trade”. The new article On Limiting the Actions on the Trade Networks’ Purchase of the New Trade Objects says that a product network with the turnover less than 1 billion rubles can’t purchase or built new trade objects if its share “is more than 25% of the total number of the sold products in money terms for the last year within the limits of the city district or a municipal formation, as well as within the limits of Moscow and St.Petersburg”.
On Friday at the third and last reading the State Duma adopted the bill introducing the criminal liability – up to seven years of the liberty deprivation – for the price collusion and unfair competition. The amendments were made to Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Till now such lawbreakers were only threatened the administration measures, for instance, the penalties.
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The scandal around the Cherkizovskiy market continues to develop. On Monday about 400 businessmen arranged a meeting and threatened to block the Moscow ring road as a protest against the decision of the market administration to give their trade places to the Chinese left without a job after the Cherkizovskiy market was closed. The Federal Migration Service tries to place the legal sellers in a job in Luzhniki and other trade places. At the same time, being afraid of the new conflicts, the Federal Migration Service recommended all its departments not to give the job permissions to the foreigners in the trade field at all.
A group of businessmen from the Cherkizovskiy market addressed the President Dmitry Medvedev with a request to either resume the work of the market or to move it beyond the Moscow borders step-by-step. The Moscow government gave to understand that the Cherkizovskiy market, where about 100 000 people worked, would not be opened again, and offered the sellers to find a job at some other markets, where there are 7000 free working places. The Moscow government decided to build the municipal housing at the place of this trade point.
On Thursday the sellers continued the spontaneous meetings at the Cherkizovskiy market demanding to open the market or to give the goods back to them. About 2000 people gathered to sign the application addressed to the President Dmitry Medvedev. Some of them were allowed to take their goods back, and 20 reckless sellers were detained by the security guards after trying to burst to the market. During the special meeting on Friday the members of the Public House of the Russian Federation demanded to give the working places to all the sellers regardless of their nationality.
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Last week the celebrated news of the product retail was the news of the American Wal-Mart’s purchase of the network Kopeyka. It became known that in June Nikolay Tsvetkov, the main shareholder of the discount network Kopeyka, was offered to sell 100% of the network, which according to the experts’ estimates might cost up to $630 million.
If until recently the Ukrainian network “O’Kay” declared the search of the strategic investor for keeping the pace of business development, now the company started to consider the possibility of selling. The sum of the deal may be minimal: the development department of “O’Kay” group declared their intention to dissolve the lease contracts with the network stores, which provide the necessary visitors’ supply to their shopping centers. But as the experts say, it will be rather difficult to do this after the stores are closed.
Last week both Magnit and the Seventh Continent networks declared their financial working results.
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In spite of the crisis the new retail projects continue to appear. Last week the launch of the new retail network of Kids Garden stores effected by GK Tashir became known.
Scarlett, the new St.Petersburg network selling household chemistry and perfumery, is actively capturing the market. Within three months the company has opened ten stores and isn’t going to decrease the development pace.
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Last week it became known that SantaHouse, the network of the household stores, was selling the remains of the goods. More than 90 suppliers have already prosecuted actions against the retailer due to its payment defaults since the end of last year.
With the suppliers’ help it could be stated that July, 19th would be the last working day of SantaHouse network, which is stopping its activity. The new tenants are already found for the place of the SantaHouse stores.
The Lipetsk network of the household appliances stores “Uyuterra” has planned to enter the St.Petersburg market. Now the retailer is only considering the trade places, where the SantaHouse stores were working.
At the end of the week there appeared the information that the hypermarket of the construction materials of St.Petersburg retailer Maksidom was able to function in Rostov-on-Don only within 18 months and was closed.
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The network of household appliances and electronics Eldorado declared changing of its general director – from September, 1st the company will be headed by Kakha Kobakhidze, the top-manager of Indesit Company. Igor Nemchenko, the acting general director of Eldorado, is leaving the network, having fulfilled the excise plan.
Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation declared the international search of Alexander Shifrin, the ex-general director of Eldorado network.
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After Anders Dalvig, the president of IKEA group, informed in June that the company is suspending its development in Russia, the Ministry of Economic Development engaged in the problems of the Swedish concern. The Ministry found three serious problems preventing IKEA’s development in Russia.
During the crisis the Swedish retailer also suffered from the unfair tenants of its shopping centers in Russia. Several companies occupied the trade rooms within a year, then moved out and demanded to receive the rental fee back – some tenants practice such a scheme with the support of the Arbitrage courts.
However, last week the shopping and entertainment center MEGA, the second one in Siberia, opened in Omsk. This project has escaped the fate of the one in Samara.
The digest was prepared by Retailer.RU and was translated by iTrex company. Itrex is a translation bureau. It offers written and oral translation, notary certification and a lot more. Itrex does work with every language: European, Eastern languages and others. Itrex does work with every topic: technical, legal, financial, business, etc.
