On December 17, 2021, amendments to the Customs Law published in the Official Gazette of RS no. 118/2021 as of December 9, 2021 (the “Law”) entered into force. Outlined below is an overview of the key novelties, that were notably enacted for alignment with the changes introduced in the EU customs regulations.

On November 16, 2021, the Law on Amendments to the Law on Procedure of Registration in the Business Registers Agency (Official Gazette of RS no. 105/2021) (the “Law”) has entered into force, while the application of certain provisions has been postponed for the prescribed period.

On November 16, 2021, amendments to the Law on Free Access to the Information of Public Importance (the “Law”) entered into force, as they had been published in the Official Gazette of the RS no. 105/2021 of November 8, 2021, whereby they were passed for the purpose of alignment with relevant regulations adopted in the meantime, such as the Law on Data Secrecy and the Law on Personal Data Protection, and international standards in the respective field, as well as introduction of mechanisms to ensure that the authorities act in accordance with their legal duties, and that information seekers enact their rights under the Law exclusively for the purposes stipulated therein.

The Government of Serbia has recently adopted the Proposal for Amendments to the Companies Law (the “Proposal”), which official text states that its primary goal is to promote the protection of minority shareholders, in accordance with measures provided by the Action Plan of the Program for Improvement of Position of the Republic of Serbia on the World Bank’s Business List – Doing Business for the period 2020-2023. In addition, the respective novelties imply other changes as well, the most significant being those referring to the position of entrepreneurs, and court protection in case of business address abuse.

The Law on Amendments to the Law on Tax Procedure and Tax Administration (Official Gazette of RS, no. 96/2021) (the “Law”) was adopted on October 16, 2021. The novelties introduced by this piece of regulation particularly include those referring to the filing of tax application for calculated mandatory social insurance contributions for company founders and/or shareholders, deferral of interest payment for settled obligations, replacement of insurance instruments for collection of due taxes, and issuance of additional record.

On October 9, 2019, the Court of Appeal of Brussels passed judgment 2019/AR/1006 whereby it established, pursuant to and in accordance with Article 16 of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), that banks are obliged to use correct diacritics when spelling clients’ names, since these are personal data, and therefore subject to accurate writing.

Last month, Freedom House published its annual report on freedom on the Internet (the “Report”), where Serbia got 71 out of 100 points, thus taking the 15^th place among 70 countries where the said research had been conducted.

The Labour Law (“Official Gazette of RS”, no. 24/2005, 61/2005, 54/2009, 32/2013, 75/2014, 13/2017 – decision of the CC, 113/2017 and 95/2018 – authentic interpretation) (the “Law”) prescribes that employer shall be obliged, prior to the termination of employment agreement due to violation of working obligation or working discipline, to notify the employee in writing on the existence of reasons for such termination, as well as to provide the employee with a period of minimum eight days from the warning submission to declare on the subject allegations. Employer is obliged to state grounds for termination in the warning, as well as facts and evidence indicating the fulfilment of requirements for termination, and deadline for submitting the employee’s response thereof.

The Ministry of Health passed a new bylaw within the health care system. The Rulebook on Forms in Health Care System was published in the Official Gazette of RS no. 31/2021 on March 31, 2021, and entered into force on April 8, 2021 (the “Rulebook”).

Application of the Law on Fiscalization (Official Gazette of RS no. 153/2020) (“the Law”), that we have discussed before, which has repealed Serbian Law on Fiscal Cash Registers (Official Gazette of RS no. 135/04 and 93/12) by entering into force on December 29, 2020, will start on January 1, 2022 (except for several provisions that have already started to apply, on the day of entry into force). The regulation concerned, along with the set of by-laws enacted for its implementation, introduces a completely new model of fiscalization, which – among other things – implies a wider circle of taxpayers who will be obliged to apply it, new rules regarding the characteristics of fiscal cash registers and fiscal receipts, as well as certain subsidies for the entities covered by fiscalization.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia passed the Decision on the level of minimum labour wage for the period January – December 2022 and it was published in the Official Gazette of RS no. 87/2021 of 10 September 2021, while it shall apply from 1 January 2022 (“the Decision”).

COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly brought significant changes not only to the everyday life of citizens but also to the operations of business entities, i.e. to the way of establishing and conducting the work process.

With an interesting legislative pipeline and a full deck of elections announced for next April, Serbia finds itself in a place of opportunity right now, according to PR Legal Partner Milan Petrovic.

When it comes to reporting obligation to the National Bank of Serbia (“NBS”), what first comes to mind is the reporting regulated by the Decision on reporting on foreign credit transactions (Official Gazette of RS no. 56/2013, 4/2015 and 42/2020), which is done through commercial banks of reporting obligors.

Previously Yugoslav (JUS), and now Serbian (SRPS) standards for tobacco and tobacco products, dating back from the sixties and eighties of the 20^th century, are no longer mandatory. Starting from 10 July 2021, manufacturers of tobacco and tobacco products, including cigarettes, are not obliged to place products in the market that meet the requirements established by these standards.

The Law on the Protection of Business Secret (Official Gazette of RS, no. 53/2021, “LPBS“) entered into force on 5 June 2021 and it completely repealed the previous law that regulated this matter.

The Law amending the Law on Excise (Official Gazette of RS, no. 53/2021) entered into force on 5 June 2021 and its novelties refer to the excise for alcoholic beverages. 

The Law amending the Law on Mining and Geological Exploration (Official Gazette of RS no. 40/2021) entered into force on 30 April 2021 and most important changes refer to specification of certain solutions and more detailed normative regulation of individual issues, harmonisation with legal regulations in the field of environmental protection, introduction of e-business etc.