Verkhovna Rada registers new Draft Law №3607 on the Business Ombudsman Institution in Ukraine

This news was announced on the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine web-site. The authors of the Draft Law No. 3607 are Dmytro Kysylevskyy, Ihor Marchuk, Dmytro Natalukha and others – a total of 39 deputies. 
The Business Ombudsman Council is an institution helping businesses to extrajudicially regulate supervisory authorities’ malpractice. In accordance with the public report within 5 years of operations considered over 7000 complaints and helped recover UAH 18 bn for Ukrainian enterprises. The vast majority of the BOC complainants (72%) are small and medium-sized businesses. 
The Draft Law enhances Business Ombudsman’s opportunities to protect business, defines a clearer procedure for reviewing complaints, establishes an independent status of the Business Ombudsman Institution as a non-profit organization, unlike the current status of an advisory body under the Cabinet of Ministers. 
We would like to remind that earlier the Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Economic Development of the Verkhovna Rada Dmytro Kysylevskyi suggested deputies withdrawing the previous version of the law being a transitional one from the Rada of the eighth convocation. ‘The old version has become irrelevant, while the Business Ombudsman’s activity in Ukraine has not. The new version of the Draft Law takes into account previous versions deficiencies and meets present-day realities. Legal status settlement of the Business Ombudsman will help better protect Ukrainian business’, said the deputy. 
 
According to the Business Ombudsman Marcin Święcicki: ‘Adoption of the Draft Law “On the Business Ombudsman Institution in Ukraine” will be a good signal for Ukrainian and international investors, it will reassure that Ukraine is guided by the rule of law and uses all the tools to protect business interests against possible government agencies malpractice’.
 
New version of the Draft Law:
1. Changes the institution status to a non-governmental non-profit organization.
2. Provides for the possibility of regional offices formation.
3. Grants the right to meet with all civil servants, including the Prime Minister, as a matter of priority. Provides for the possibility of attending meetings of the Cabinet of Ministers, the Verkhovna Rada.
4. Systematizes eligibility criteria for lodging and rejecting complaints, determines a clear procedure for their review.
5. Obliges bodies outside the Cabinet of Ministers to cooperate with the Business Ombudsman. 
6. Expands the responsibility of government officials for unlawful refusal to provide accurate and on time information at the request of the Business Ombudsman Institution
7. Determines the mechanism of the Supervisory Board formation, its entry criteria and the possibility of voluntary withdrawal of business associations from the Supervisory Board.