The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, on December 14, 2017, at the Fifth Sitting ofthe Second Regular Session in 2017 adopted a set of budget, tax, financial and other laws and among others:
• The Law onAmendments to the Law of Public Property (“Official Gazette of RS” no. 113/2017);
• The Law onAmendments tothe Law on Terms of Settlement of Financial Obligations in Commercial Transactions (“Official Gazetteof RS”, no. 113/2017).
1) The Law on Public Property(“Official Gazetteof RS”, no. 72/2011, 88/2013, 105/2014, 104/2016 –other law, 108/2016 and 113/2017, hereinafter: “LPP”)
LPP is applicable as of December 18, 2017. These amendments corrected shortcomings which were identified in the implementation of the LPP by specifying certain provisions and improving existing legislation, also by regulating the matters of use and disposal of certain property rights owned by the holder of public property rights.
LPP specifies what is included in other property rights of the Republic of Serbia, autonomous province and localself-government, how to acquire, use and of dispose them.LLP when regulating the manner of acquiring, using and disposing of the other property rights,itrefers to special laws which regulate other property rights and to provisions of LPP which regulate the manner of acquiring, using and disposal of immovable property, or public property assets.
The list of assets thatcannot be subject to enforcement procedure is amended,so nowshares or stocks of public companies and companies which are owned by the Republic of Serbia, autonomous province or localself-governmentare exempt from enforcement procedure, unless Republic of Serbia, autonomous province or localself-governmentprovides its consent to pledge these shares or stocks.LPP also prescribes that movable and immovable assets used by medical institutions from Medical InstitutionsNetwork Plan cannot also be subject to enforcement procedure. Finally, as of the day of entering into force of theLPP, enforcement procedures on assets that are exempt from enforcement procedure, cannot be finalized.
The deadline for submitting theadditional request for registration of the public property for autonomous province and localself-government or public property of public company and private companyreferring to the immovable property they are using, is extended to December 31, 2020.
2) The law on terms of settlement of financial obligation in commercial transactions(“Official Gazetteof RS”, no. 119/2012, 68/2015 i 113/2017, hereinafter: “Law”)
The Law enters into force onDecember 25, 2017except for certain provisions whose application is suspended by the Law, as explained below.
The most important novelties refer to commercial transactions with public sector entities as debtors,which are introduced to improve the monitoring of invoices issued in these transactions, as well as to increase the efficiency of controlling settlement of monetary obligations of the public-sector entities within the deadlines prescribed by the Law.The Law introduces a new term – Central Register of Invoices (hereinafter: “CRI”) being a system (database), used for registration of invoices and other payment orders issued by creditors in commercial transactions in which public sector entities appear as debtors. All other amendments of the Law regulate thepossibilities and obligations related to CRI.
Creditors shall be obliged to register their invoices and other payment ordersin CRI prior to delivering them to the debtors, aspublic-sector entities, while thepublic-sectorentities will be allowed to make payments only based on invoices and other payment ordersthat wereproperly registered in CRI.
The obligation of registering invoices and other payment ordersin the CRI in commercial transactions in which the debtors are the public-sector entitiesthat make payments through accounts held by the Treasury, will be applicable from March 08, 2018, while these obligations regarding other debtors from the public sector, that make payments through bank accounts, shall be applicable once all technical-technological requirements are met.
The Law also introduces offences and penalties in the range of RSD 100.000,00 to RSD 2.000.000,00 for creditors that are legal or public-sector entities,that do not register issued invoices and other payment orders in the CRI, and offences and penalties in the range of RSD 5.000,00 to RSD 150.000,00 for the debtor or the responsible person in the public sector for making payments based on invoices or other orders which have not been previously registered in the CRI.