The president of Russia’s largest business lobby will oversee a revamped version of the country’s business ombudsman office, the Kremlin said Tuesday, ending a two-year vacancy at the top of the state watchdog.
Alexander Shokhin, who has led the pro-Kremlin Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) since 2005, met with President Vladimir Putin earlier in the day to pitch a structural overhaul of the business ombudsman office.
The institution was created in 2012 to shield business owners and companies from arbitrary, unwarranted pressure by state law enforcement and government agencies.
During the Kremlin meeting on Tuesday, Putin endorsed Shokhin’s proposal to transition the office of the Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights away from a strict government agency model, shifting it into a mixed “public-state institution.”
Under the new framework, the ombudsman’s office will reorganize into an Autonomous Non-Profit Organization (ANO). This non-membership corporate structure will be overseen by an executive body appointed directly by its founding members.
