On 1 January 2016, Law of Ukraine № 867-VIII On Amendments to Certain Ukrainian Legislation Related to Deregulation in Agribusiness (the "Law") came into force. The Law provides for a significantly lesser number of approval procedures and other mandatory requirements for agribusiness operations, or a narrower scope of their application.
Main Developments

According to the Law, 22 of 110 approval procedures in the fields of crop production, livestock breeding, fisheries, pesticides and agrochemicals (or fertilizers), food products and environmental management shall be cancelled. Further, the Law limits the powers of certain authorities to perform state control in agroindustry.
The Law, among other things, includes the following main changes:

  i.    quarantine (import or transit) permits are cancelled;
 ii.    mandatory state registration of typical common fertilizers (or agrochemicals), as listed
        in the attachment to the Law, is no longer required;
iii.    mandatory veterinary certificates for fodder, in particular feed grain, in the event
       of transportation from the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, any
       region, the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol, any district, city, town, or within any district,
       are no longer required;
iv.    the scope of certain licences is narrowed: for commercial fishing (only required
        for catching aquatic biological resources outside the jurisdiction of Ukraine) and
        for treatment of chemical substances of very high concern (only required for
        production thereof and hazardous waste treatment);
 v.    no permit is needed for the use of groundwater from water intakes if a land owner or
        land user uses no more than 300 m³ of groundwater (except for mineral water)
        per 24 hours within their land plot for any purpose, except for the production of
        bottled drinking water.
Expected consequences

The changes implemented by the Law are designed to provide a more favourable regulatory environment in agroindustry, to simplify agribusiness operations and to reduce administrative expenses.

Additional notes

This LEGAL ALERT is issued to inform Baker & McKenzie clients and other interested parties of legal developments that may affect or otherwise be of interest to them. The comments above do not constitute legal or other advice and should not be regarded as a substitute for specific advice in individual cases.