Litigation. Major Russian Legislation Changes For 2017

1. Change in the rules for applying the mandatory pre-arbitration dispute resolution procedure when filing with Russian commercial courts

Amendments to Article 4(5) of the RF Commercial Procedure Code entered into force on August 10, 2017 for disputes that must follow the mandatory pre-trial (pre-arbitration) dispute resolution procedure.

The changes were a response to justified criticism from the legal community of the rules on the mandatory pre-trial dispute resolution procedure that appeared earlier in the RF Commercial Procedure Code, including because those rules were not sufficiently developed. For example, problems had arisen in practice due to the need to prove that the pre-arbitration procedure had been followed for claims of a non-monetary nature, when it either couldn't be applied or there was no sense in doing so (for example, cases to invalidate transactions, to declare ownership of real estate, etc.).