THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE WANTS TO INTRODUCE NEW FINES FOR COLLECTORS

The Ministry of Justice has developed a draft of the next amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences aimed at regulating the activities of collectors. In particular, additional fines may appear for the lack of equipment for recording conversations.

Currently, the unscrupulous activities of collection agencies are already being punished under the Administrative Code, for example, for continuous calls to the indebted person. In the case when the collector goes beyond what is permitted and begins to threaten the debtor with physical violence, he is already facing criminal punishment in accordance with the recently adopted law.

The Ministry of Justice in its draft proposes to allow bailiffs to impose penalties on collectors in the following cases:

• for not presenting himself to the debtor when calling (the collector is obliged to give his name or an individual identification code);

• for the absence of records of telephone conversations with the debtor;

• for non-compliance with the requirements of the legislation defined for a collection, credit or microfinance organization;

• for violating the general rules of performing actions aimed at returning overdue debts of citizens;

• for failure to comply with the decision to restrict the use of one or more ways of interacting with the debtor.

As Vladimir Gruzdev, Chairman of the Board of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta, these amendments will improve the mechanism for protecting debtors from illegal actions to repay the debt. The bill expands the range of administrative measures against collectors. If such changes are adopted, the necessary conditions will be created to prevent violations.