Litigation during pandemic

From March 19 to April 30, 2020, courts have been quarantined. The Commercial courts, which have not stopped their work, hold trials only on cases of an urgent nature, simplified and summary proceedings.

You can check the updated list of urgent cases on the website of the court.

These rules were approved by the presidium of the Supreme Court and the Council of Judges.

1. Review the case materials via the Internet

If the Commercial court operates during quarantine, then you can review the case file online, but you should consider that not all courts have an appropriate online system.

To review the case materials, you should send a request via the Internet through your personal account in a special system «My arbitr».

If the court approves the request, a notification with an access code will be sent by e-mail for opening the access to the case file.

• Procedural periods during the quarantine are not being extended

Documents can be submitted via the Internet or mail. That is why, in case of missing the deadline for the protection of the violated right, court may refuse to prolong the period.

Court proceeding on urgent matters are held in accordance with established rules. However, if the party to trial is from another region, the courts recommend taking part in court proceeding via videoconferencing, if this is technically possible.

If the dispute is referred to the list of cases that can be trial in a simplified or summary procedure, then the proceeding is carried out according to the established rules for this category of cases.

Moreover, the Supreme Court recommended to Commercial courts to trial any lawsuits, if the parties provided the application for proceeding in their absence in advance.

To postpone the trial, the motion should be sent to the court. The new date of the trial you can find out by phone or on the court’s website.

If the court does not operate during quarantine, then the received documents for this period will be received and registered with the court on the first business day of May.

• WhatsApp can only be used to carry out certain procedural actions during the urgent proceeding

WhatsApp video call is not considered as participation in trial via video conference, for which compliance with certain conditions is required.

Courts are entitled to use technical tools, including WhatsApp, to carry out certain procedural actions.

Particularly, when hearing urgent cases – to notify parties to trial or examination of parties at a stage of preparation for the main trial.

However, the procedural law does not contain the provisions to consider disputes via WhatsApp.

So, the court hearing is held without parties to trial based on the existing case materials.

Specialists of VALEN are ready to provide qualified legal support in litigation, given the measures applied during the pandemic.