The Prosecutor's office of the Moscow Region held a meeting dedicated to discussing complaints of entrepreneurs from the Moscow Region about the violation of their rights by regional operators for the treatment of solid municipal waste. With the participation of representatives of the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs in the Moscow Region, the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services and regional operators, the arguments of all interested parties were considered and a compromise solution was found.

Over the past two years, the number of appeals received by the Moscow Business Ombudsman Vladimir Golovnev has increased, complaining about the actions of regional operators. In their statements, entrepreneurs most often noted two types of violations.

The first is an attempt to unilaterally terminate existing contracts, the removal of solid municipal waste for which is calculated based on the actual accumulation of garbage. In return, unfavorable conditions are imposed on businessmen under inflated accumulation standards.

The second is the incorrect application of standards for the accumulation of MSW regarding the type of entrepreneurial activity. Complaints about such violations have been received against a number of regional operators. In one case, a standard for the accumulation of MSW established for consumer service enterprises was illegally applied to an enterprise engaged in issuing Internet orders. In the second case, commercial accounting of the volume of MSW for enterprises engaged in trade in non–food goods was carried out not from the retail space, but from the total area of the premises.

At the same time, according to the applicants, regional operators, acting in violation of paragraph 8 (14) of the Rules for Handling Solid Municipal Waste, approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1156 of 12.11.2016, evaded the settlement of disputes under contracts.

"In April of this year, with the assistance of the relevant committee of the Moscow Regional Duma, a similar meeting on the standards of accumulation of municipal solid waste by business entities has already been held. Then the first steps were taken to normalize the situation. The Regional Prosecutor's Office conducted an inspection of documentation regulating MSW accumulation standards. The Ministry of Housing and Communal Services has created a working group, which included my representative, and monitored compliance with the standards established in relation to organizations, the actual volumes of waste generated. Today we tried to sum up some of the results of the work done, and we saw where the failure occurs," said the Commissioner Vladimir Golovnev.

According to the Business Ombudsman, the main problem lies in the disrupted communication between business representatives and regional operators.

"At the meeting, it was decided to create a chat with all representatives of regional  operators for operational processing of entrepreneurs`complaints related to MSW. We will supervise this interaction along with the Prosecutor's Office of the Moscow Region until such issues begin to be resolved on a systematic basis," Vladimir Golovnev stressed.