President Vladimir Putin approved amendments to the law "On the Fundamentals of State Regulation of Trading Activities in the Russian Federation," according to which it is forbidden to levy fines on food producers if they fail to fulfill retail chains' orders for delivery exceeding the volume and schedule previously agreed upon by the parties. The document is published on the official legal portal.
Previously, there was no transparent planning mechanism for product deliveries to retail chains. They could request a larger volume from the supplier without warning, and if the manufacturer did not ship the products, the store would issue a fine. Now, the law stipulates that retail chains and their suppliers are prohibited from including in the contract conditions on liability "for the full or partial non-delivery of food products to retail chains in an amount exceeding the quantity agreed upon by the parties." The law comes into force on September 1, so that market participants have time to bring contracts into compliance with it; a transitional period is established until March 1, 2026.
Earlier, the parliament adopted a bill developed with the participation of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. According to the regulator, the innovations are designed to solve the problem of imposing orders without confirmation (such situations, in particular, arise due to errors in demand forecasting by retail) and related penalties, which, according to the FAS, burdened manufacturers and ultimately consumers, Izvestia previously wrote.
Executive Director of the association "Rusprodsoyuz" Dmitry Vostrikov told the publication that to avoid a fine, a supplier is obliged to supply any volume of goods requested by the chain, even if it is an annual volume, regardless of whether he confirmed the order received from the chain or not. At the same time, for some chains, fines can exceed the average profitability in the food industry, which leads to abuses by chains that use this practice to obtain additional profit, he pointed out.
Stanislav Bogdanov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Association of Retail Companies, believes that the main advantage of the adopted law is that it helps reduce the risks of supply disruptions, contributing to a shift away from one-time spot deals and an increase in the share of long-term contracts, which are necessary to ensure price and physical stability of supplies in the food market, Izvestia quoted him as saying.