🇷🇺🇯🇵 Neither an arbitration clause nor a jurisdiction clause applies if a party to litigation, a Russian one, has been affected by sanctions. A new decision has just been issued. A court orders a Japan bank to pay about JPY 95 million to a Russian sanctioned bank, while objections to jurisdiction based on a jurisdiction clause in favour of a Japan court rejected (Case No. А40-226781/2023). #Japan

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🇷🇺⚖️ The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation clarifies that a foreign creditor seeking enforcement of a Russian court judgment must have a Russian bank account. If no such account exists, the Federal Bailiff Service of the Russian Federation will decline to commence enforcement proceedings. A bank account of a Russian representative of the foreign debtor is not accepted (the decision in case No 306-ЭС24-1663 of 27 May 2024). It is likely that this approach will extend to the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and foreign court judgments in Russia.

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🇷🇺🇩🇪 A Russian court has recognized a Germany court decision. The Russian court rejected the defendant's objection based on restrictive measures (unilateral sanctions) against the Russian Federation. The defendant pointed out that the Republic of Germany had imposed restrictive measures against the Russian Federation, so that recognition of the the foreign decision would be contrary to Russian public policy. This objection was rejected as unfounded (Case No А56-49800/2024). #Germany

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⚖️ A Russian court, considering a bankruptcy case, has recognized arbitral award issued under ICSID Additional Facility Arbitration Rules. However, the court is silent on whether the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards applies to the award (Case No А40-46865/24-109-128).

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📝 The "Lugovoy Law" has no limits. Any obstacle to bringing a case to arbitration renders an arbitration agreement ineffective. A case goes to a state court. Although a decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation deals with the LCIA, I see no reason why the same approach should not be applicable to any arbitral institution. One would say that there are "unfriendly" institutions and there are "friendly" ones. Is that right? Should I recall court decisions against "friendly" institutions? There is no dividing line between "friendly" and "unfriendly" institutions, but there is something else (the decision in case No 305-ЭС24-13398 of 28 November 2024). #Lugovoy

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🇷🇺🇰🇿 A Russian court has rejected an application for recognition and enforcement of a decision of the Court of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC Court). According to the Russian court, the decision of the AIFC Court does not fall within the scope of Article 54 of the Convention on Legal Aid and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters (Chisinau, 7 October 2002) (the Kishinev Convention). Article 54 of the Kishinev Convention deals with the recognition and enforcement of judgments. #Kazakhstan

The decisions of the Altai regional court dated 01 November 2024, in Russian, are attached (see above).

P.S. Thanks to Alexander Muranov for the overview of cases in Russian.

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In PESA v. UralTransMash, a Russian cassation court endorses the principle of arbitrator bias. In the eyes of the court, two of three arbitrators were from "unfriendly" countries. In the course of the SCC arbitration proceedings, the party against whom the award was made challenged the appointment of an arbitrator, but the challenge was rejected. Thus, according to the court, two of three arbitrators were biased (!) (the decision in case А60-24839/2024 of 2 December 2024).

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