Paper short abstract:

The paper seeks to explore the interplay of formal and informal components in mediating functions of custom brokers at Russian customs. It is focused on informality and trust in relationships between businessmen-clients and custom brokers as well as between the latter and custom officials.

Paper long abstract:

The paper seeks to explore the interplay of formal and informal relationships and practices at Russian customs. It is focused on combination of formal and informal components in mediating functions of custom brokers. In contrast to western countries, the role of Russian custom brokers is not so much to assist businessmen in going through customs formalities, but to manipulate the system in order to reduce cargo costs and accelerate the process via informal channels. A special market of informal custom services has been formed during the last decade offering a wide spectrum of custom clearance' schemes - from "white or light-grey" to "fast black". The same colour spectrum is used to mark the legal status of custom brokers.

The paper will demonstrate the diversity of informal relationships at customs. We will focus more precisely on the role of informality and trust in relationships between businessmen-clients and custom brokers as well as between the later and custom officials. "White" or "grey" status of custom brokers can hardly explain the degree of their involvement in informal relationships. As it follows from our study, "white" brokers are the same active in using "grey" schemas as "grey" brokers. It will be also shown that informal relationships with custom officials is a crucial point of any custom clearance procedure - either "white" or "grey".

The empirical data for the paper is drawn mainly from 12 in-depth interviews with custom brokers, businessmen-clients and custom officials at St. Petersburg customs conducted within the frame of the project "Intermediaries' Boom and Informal Relationships in the Business Sphere and Everyday life" (2005) supported by Jefferson Institute. For the analysis of the role of informality in everyday economic life we also use about 30 interviews with businessmen conducted for the project «Prospects for Fighting Corruption in Post Socialist Countries: Cases of Russia and Hungary» (2003-2004).