On March 18, 2022, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia announced that it had discussed with the Wildberries marketplace the issue of legalizing parallel imports in Russia. Currently, by law, the import of goods into the country without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited. After the meeting, the FAS sent a draft resolution on the legalization of parallel imports to the government.
After the adoption of the document and the permission of parallel imports, the FAS plans to hold a series of working meetings with the main Russian marketplaces and the business community in order to explain to them the situation and their new opportunities. Not all goods will fall under the legalization of parallel imports. The list of goods that can be imported into the country without the permission of the manufacturer will be determined by the government.
“The legalization of parallel imports in the current environment will help increase the number of business entities importing goods to Russia. This will make it possible to saturate the domestic market with goods that consumers need,” the FAS representative explained.
FAS clarified that “parallel imports will solve the problems of price, quality and assortment discrimination on the part of right holders against Russian consumers, as well as manifestations of various forms of unfair competition on the part of official distributors of goods against importers.”
A spokeswoman for Wildberries said this will have a positive impact on the SME sector, including socially significant goods such as medicines, food and children's products.
Since 2020, the FAS has been trying to enable the legal import of foreign goods without issuing additional permits, but it has not been able to implement its initiatives due to legislative restrictions.
Parallel import is a term that refers to the importation into a country of goods bearing a trademark without the permission of the owner of that trademark (i.e. "parallel" to the "official" import of such goods through dealers authorized by the right holder). Such goods are often referred to as "grey market" goods. The legal regulation of this issue is not the same in different countries.
Currently, parallel imports are prohibited by Article 1487 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, according to which goods can be imported directly by the right holder, or with his consent. This norm on the territory of the Russian Federation establishes the concept of national exhaustion of rights. Thus, the right holder loses all exclusive rights provided by the national legislation on intellectual property after the first introduction of the goods into civil circulation by himself or with his consent within the country.
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