Experts spoke about the non-admission of companies under sanctions to foreign courts

Russian companies under sanctions face practical difficulties in applying to international arbitration. This problem was pointed out on February 17 by the lawyers who took part in the conference “Arbitration disputes involving sanctioned persons. Lessons for RUSSIA and the EU” hosted by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).

The main problem: sub-sanctioned companies cannot pay the arbitration fee, since banks refuse to conduct transactions with legal entities from the black list. This is one of the three mandatory fees, along with registration and security fees, without which the case will not be allowed to proceed. The size of the arbitration fee depends on the amount of claims, the number of participants in the dispute, its nature and can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

De jure, absolutely all companies have the opportunity to defend their interests in reputable arbitration institutions. However, de facto, according to Petr Ilyichev, the Chairman of the Arbitration Commission of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, the very fact of imposing sanctions limits the company's access to international justice.

Back in 2015, a number of leading international arbitration institutions, including the relevant courts of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), issued a joint statement that they were ready to overcome the difficulties that Russian sanctioned companies face when applying for arbitration. But at the same time, in practice, they are forced to comply with the sanctions regime, said Alexander Grebelsky, Chairman of the Collegium for International and Investment Disputes of the Arbitration Center at the RSPP. The European Arbitration Institutions wrote in 2015 (.pdf) that the sanctions do not prevent parties on the EU sanctions list from filing a request for arbitration, but those involved may need special permission from European regulators, for example, to pay the dispute.