The most frequent Supreme Court court cases of 2024

Jan, 22 2025

Significant Supreme Court decisions always attract attention and influence the practice of law by being the subject of discussion in the expert community. Supreme Court judges spend a lot of time parsing similar cases in which lower courts make typical mistakes.

It is possible to highlight a number of court cases from 2024, where the Supreme Court determined a unified approach to case resolution (for example, on bank commissions, debt indexation and moratorium on penalties, etc.), which significantly improves court practice and ensures unity of law application.

The most frequent court cases of 2024

Indexation of debts and court judgements:

The issue of indexation of court judgements has been considered by the Supreme Court more than ten times.  This indicates widespread errors in the application of provisions governing the indexation of debts and the need for clarifications from the Supreme Court on the correct calculation of indexation taking into account changes in inflation and other economic indicators.  The ambiguity of legislative norms in this area and different approaches of lower courts required multiple interventions of the Supreme Court to establish a unified practice which was described in the December case review of the Supreme Court.

Moratorium on forfeitures:

The moratorium on the recovery of forfeitures from legal entities for the pandemic period introduced in the spring of 2020 has given rise to many disputes over its application and interpretation. The Supreme Court has repeatedly considered cases related to the application of the moratorium, clarifying in which cases it should be applied and in which cases it should not, thus eliminating contradictory practice of lower courts.

Thus, according to the position of the Supreme Court, the moratorium does not apply to commercial loans, as interest on the loan is not a penalty.

The Supreme Court agreed with the application of the moratorium in cases of breach of state contracts and late payment under a leasing agreement.

Movable or immovable property:

The Supreme Court continues to clarify the criteria for determining movable and immovable property. This is important because movable property is exempt from corporate property tax, allowing companies to save on tax deductions.

For example, in one case, a company tried to convince the court that cables, generators and transformers were movable items and had no connection to a solar power plant.

Three instances confirmed that the cables and generator were part of the immovable complex, but only the Supreme Court upheld the taxpayer’s position.

The Supreme Court noted that in the case of a dispute, it is necessary to take into account the natural characteristics of the objects and accounting data.

According to the current regulations and the All-Russian Classifier, equipment is not included in the concept of buildings and structures. It constitutes a separate category of fixed assets, which means that the tax authorities have no grounds for additional property tax charges.

Bank commissions:

Since the credit organisation itself formulates the content of the contract, it may include provisions on any commissions in the text.

At the same time, the Supreme Court in such cases tries to distinguish the interests of customers and the interests of banks and to find a balance in decision-making.

Thus, the Supreme Court has stated that barrier bank commissions prevent customers from disposing of their funds, which is knowingly unfair and violates the rights of customers.

Author of the article
The most frequent Supreme Court court cases of 2024
Irina Girgushkina
Head of legal, head of corporate law practice
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