Latin American documents that Russian authorities will accept

What is happening

A company from the Dominican Republic knows that some states objected to its country's accession to the Hague Convention and doubts whether its apostille will be accepted in Russia. It needs to check whether Russia was among the objecting states.

A Cuban founder has sent a register extract and relies on the legal assistance treaty. It must be established in advance how the tax office and the bank will treat such a document, with a fallback ready.

A Brazilian company put an apostille on a plain photocopy of its articles, and the Portuguese translation was done by an employee. The set has to be redone, and it should be done once and in full.

What the law says

• Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents (The Hague, 5 October 1961): Russia is a party as successor to the USSR. According to the status table of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, almost all countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are parties, and Russia has not objected to the accession of any of them.
• An accession has no effect between the acceding state and any party that has raised an objection (Article 12 of the Convention). For the Dominican Republic and Peru, only European states objected, so apostilles from these countries are accepted in Russia.
• Cuba is not a party to the Convention; the procedure for its documents is governed by the Treaty between the USSR and the Republic of Cuba on Legal Assistance in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters of 28 November 1984. Haiti is not a party either, and its documents require consular legalisation.
• For registration with the Federal Tax Service (FNS), documents issued by foreign authorities are accepted with an apostille or legalisation unless an international treaty provides otherwise, and foreign-language documents with a translation certified by a notary or a consular office (Annex 13 to FNS Order No. ED-7-14/617@ of 31 August 2020).
• A notary certifies the accuracy of a translation or the authenticity of the translator's signature (Article 81 of the Fundamentals of the Legislation of the Russian Federation on Notaries No. 4462-1 of 11 February 1993).
• A foreign founder proves its status with an extract from the register of legal entities of its home country or other equivalent evidence (Article 12 of Federal Law No. 129-FZ of 8 August 2001 on State Registration of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs).

What we do

• We list the documents your task requires, tailored to the specific recipient: tax office, bank or notary.
• For each issuing country we set the route: apostille, the legal assistance treaty for Cuba, or consular legalisation for Haiti.
• We give instructions for the notary in your country: what to certify, where the apostille goes and how to draft the power of attorney so that Russian authorities accept it.
• We review scans before the originals are sent: the apostille is on the original or a notarial document rather than a plain copy, and details and signing authority match.
• We arrange translation in Russia with notarial certification, including the apostille itself and every stamp and note.
• We keep a single spelling list for the company name, personal names and job titles, so that the extract, resolution, power of attorney and application match letter for letter.
• We handle documents in Spanish and English, with a translator where needed; documents in Portuguese are translated with the help of a translator.

What we will need from you

• Scans of the documents you will need in Russia and their purpose: which authority or bank.
• The issuing country of each document and, if you already have one, a contact for a local notary or lawyer.
• Signatories' passports and the Latin spelling of their names exactly as in the passport.
• The apostilled or legalised originals, sent by courier to Moscow once executed.