Parliament has approved the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the FARA bill, with its third reading. During today’s plenary session, 86 lawmakers voted in favour of the amendments.

During the voting, Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili noted that “a law identical to the American standard and an exact copy has been adopted.” Along with FARA, amendments to the Criminal Code have also been approved.

With this decision, the issues of registering entities as agents of foreign principals have been regulated. The Anti-Corruption Bureau will be responsible for enforcing the law.

The bill regulates the following issues: ensuring publicity of applications for registration as a foreign principal agent and other appropriate documents; submission of annual financial declarations by entities registered as foreign principal agents; cancellation of registration of entities registered as foreign principal agents; implementation of monitoring to identify foreign principal agents or to verify compliance with the requirements defined by the bill. Evading registration as a foreign principal agent and failure to comply with the requirements defined by law will result in criminal liability.

The bill will be sent to the President for signature.