Page 15 - bne magazine March 2017 issue

bne March 2017 Companies & Markets I 15
ment buildings, including those of the White House, the Presi- dential Administration, the Federal Assembly, the State Duma, the Central Bank of Russia and the iconic Stalin skyscraper on Smolensk Square that houses the foreign ministry.
But other than its prestigious locations, there doesn’t seem much else to commend Book Expedition for inclusion on the list of exempted companies. In all, there are 64 state corpora- tions on the list that will not be forced to conform to the new more draconian transparency and anti-graft legislation.
“This includes an almost unrestricted choice of supplier instead of a public tender in electronic form, more speedy timing, flexible price-setting and non-mandatory audit of procurement,” Anton Nakou, a Moscow-based lawyer at Finnish law firm Castren & Snellman, tells bne IntelliNews. The generalisation of electronic procedures has been described by anti-corruption organisations as one of the key reforms in the fight against corruption in public procurement.
Media reports have mostly focused on the presence on the
list of several Russian state media, including the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), a group that owns TV channels such as Rossiya 1, one of the most popular in the country, as well as the news agency TASS. Rossiya Sevodnya also made it onto the list, a holding com- pany that controls the newly-minted Sputnik news agency and its older sister the RIA news agency, as well as the notorious RT English-language TV station.
However, as shown in the complete list compiled by bne IntelliNews, the order signed by Medvedev goes well beyond state media and covers several sectors, with a particular emphasis on construction and repair firms, cybersecurity and information technology.
Transparency just got murkier
In drawing up the list, the Russian parliament voted though an amendment to the current law on public procurement. The first version of the bill, discussed in the Duma in Decem- ber, specifically referred to “federal state unitary enterprises engaged in the distribution of mass media” – a reference to state media that was removed in later versions of the bill, allowing potentially any state corporation to be exempt from usual procurement rules.
Of the 64 firms on the list, a total of 11 are directly owned
by the Ministry of Defence, while another nine belong to the Directorate for Presidential Affairs. Security agencies are also well represented: out of 13 state firms owned by the Federal Security Service (FSB), nine were included in the list, as well
“The decree gives no details about
on what basis companies are selected for inclusion and it appears some vigorous lobbying was involved in the drawing up of the final version”
as two of the three state firms owned by the FSO. The list of FSB-linked firms includes several “research institutes” in the field of cybersecurity, as well as Gostinitsa, which provides housing for agents from the FSB and other state agencies.
Some of the other names on the list are more serious compa- nies, the most significant being Rosatom, the state monopoly for nuclear power. Twelve firms belonging to the agency
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City
Institution
Sector
Website (if it exists)
Moscow
FSB
Hostelry
Ivanovo
FSB
Research
http://ivniipik.ru/
Moscow
FSB
Real Estate/Logistics
http://complexmsk.ru
Moscow
FSB
Research/Telecommunications
http://www.rdi-kvant.ru
Kaluga
FSB
Cybersecurity
https://ntcbazis.ru
Moscow
FSB
Information technology/Cybersecurity
There's a website but it brings to spam
Rostov-on-Don
FSB
Research/Telecommunications
www.rniirs.ru
Yessentuki
FSB
Construction
Smolensk
FSB
Gas equipment
www.analitpribor-smolensk.ru
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