How do courts handle cases involving foreign persons?

But this is not a unique situation: many judicial representatives have recently begun to state arguments that their opponents are registered in countries that commit unfriendly actions against Russia, therefore the rights and legitimate interests of such persons are not subject to judicial protection. Interestingly, not all judges understand such arguments.

For example, on April 11, 2022, the Arbitration Court of the Kemerovo Region granted the claim of the Russian Copyright Society in the interests of foreign copyright holders to the radio station, despite the relevant arguments stated by the defendant.

18 The Arbitration Court of Appeal also on April 11, 2022, did not considered convincing did not consider convincing arguments about the registration of one of the participants in the process in "unfriendly" South Korea as a basis for refusing a claim for the protection of rights to trademarks and works of fine art.

At the same time, on April 11, the Arbitration Court of the Republic of Tatarstan granted the claim of the American trademark owner to the Russian individual entrepreneur, describing in detail why he did not consider the relevant argument weighty in this dispute.

And there are quite a lot of similar court decisions. See, for example, cases no. A67-988/2022, A43-26549/2021, A71-16163/2021, A52-80/2022, A03-6519/2021, etc.

Interestingly, on March 16, 2022, the Arbitration Court of the Omsk Region applied interim measures against the defendant, who, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, is controlled by companies from unfriendly states. In this regard, and also taking into account the tendency of foreign companies to suspend and terminate their activities on the territory of Russia, the court considered it necessary to seize the defendant's accounts.

At the same time, in the future, other courts refused to apply interim measures on the same grounds. See, for example, rulings 8 of the Arbitration Court of Appeal of April 11, 2022, the Arbitration Court of the Samara Region of April 11, 2022, the Arbitration Court of the City of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region of April 8, 2022, Arbitration Court of the Khabarovsk Territory of April 1 , 2022.

Thus, in our opinion, there is reason to believe that the Russian courts, despite the division of the world into friendly and unfriendly, do not discriminate against the rights of foreign persons from unfriendly countries. And some well-known court decisions could be either dictated by unique factual circumstances, or be an ordinary judicial error, which should be corrected by higher authorities.