The Supreme Court is casewhich promises to become a precedent. The Moscow Arbitration Court (A40-224317/22) terminated the 30-year lease agreement between Mosdachtrest JSC and MANFS Zenit-Inter LLC in favor of the lessor, who actually took property worth millions of dollars from a small enterprise. MANFS Zenit-Inter rented dilapidated, unusable buildings back in the early 90s. The tenant, at his own expense, carried out the reconstruction and construction from scratch of the entire engineering infrastructure – from roads to water supply networks. All this time, the tenant made regular payments. However, Mosdachtrest went to court with a demand to terminate the long-term contract. MANFS Zenit-Inter was literally bombarded with lawsuits. Since then, more than a dozen courts have taken place, and until recently the dispute was resolved in favor of the bona fide tenant. But in the summer of 2022, some people blocked the entrance to one of the MANFS Zenit-Inter buildings, causing destruction to the building. No criminal case was initiated regarding this fact – the police did not find any corpus delicti, and appeals to the prosecutor’s office and the State Duma of the Russian Federation yielded nothing. After this, the Moscow Arbitration Court for the first time ruled in favor of Mosdachtrest JSC, without paying attention to either the defendant’s evidence or even the statute of limitations.
The cassation court overturned these illegal decisions, sending the case for review with its instructions on 18 pages. Currently, the Supreme Court has remanded the case from the first instance, which in itself is unprecedented, since not a single piece of evidence from the Defendant was considered; essentially, by such actions, the Defendant is deprived of the right to defense. The Supreme Court’s verdict is not yet known. If he considers legal the decisions of the first two instances, which did not consider any of the Defendant’s evidence and did not evaluate them, as required by Art. 170 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, then the courts, referring to this case, will be able to a priori give preference to one of the parties, without considering the arguments of the other. Won’t this lead to judicial arbitrariness?
The cassation court overturned these illegal decisions, sending the case for review with its instructions on 18 pages. Currently, the Supreme Court has remanded the case from the first instance, which in itself is unprecedented, since not a single piece of evidence from the Defendant was considered; essentially, by such actions, the Defendant is deprived of the right to defense. The Supreme Court’s verdict is not yet known. If he considers legal the decisions of the first two instances, which did not consider any of the Defendant’s evidence and did not evaluate them, as required by Art. 170 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, then the courts, referring to this case, will be able to a priori give preference to one of the parties, without considering the arguments of the other. Won’t this lead to judicial arbitrariness?
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
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