Russian Law Blog

A brief overview of how modern and not-so-modern technologies are used in Russia for the benefit of the courts and the public

Free Publication of Court Decisions Online

The Arbitration Court of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad region is now planning to publish all of its trial level decisions online. As the Court’s spokeslady informed, it will take only two days between the issuance of the decision and its publication online.

The full text of decisions will be published for free. However, it is not clear how the history of the trial decision will be traced, especially if an appeal is taken from it.

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A new law that has been approved by the upper house of the Russian legislature in late June 2007 is introducing important changes to the taxation of businesses that invest in innovative technologies in Russia.  The changes are concerned with the VAT and make the following transactions completely VAT-free on the territory of Russia:

•  the realization of exclusive rights to inventions, industrial designs, software, databases, microcircuit topologies, know-how, as well as realization of such rights under a licensing agreement;
• the creation of new products and technologies or improvement of existing products and technologies, if it involves the development of new technologies, engineering objects, test samples.

Currently, the VAT in Russia is 18% for most transactions.

Source: www.duma.gov.ru

On June 5, 2007, twenty-nine largest players of Russian consumer electronics market have signed the Declaration of Direct Imports of Household and Consumer Electronics.  This is a “gentleman’s agreement” which is designed to create a new import model in Russia, based on the direct contracts between foreign manufacturers and Russian distributors/retailers. Read the rest of this entry »

The Supreme Court of Arbitration of the Russian Federation is planning to instruct the lower arbitration courts on how to handle cases which involve the application of intellectual property laws. The attention of the Court is directed towards the approx. 15,000 Internet Cafes that are currently operating in Russia. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time ever, six military schools of the Russian Ministry of Defense will enroll women for army and navy officer training programs. Read the rest of this entry »

It used to be (and still is to an alarmingly large extent) that most legal service firms in Russia offered to the willing clients the following corporate registration “scheme” for fake corporations:

• the legal service firm has a list of street addresses for various existing residential or commercial properties. Such addresses are usually offered Read the rest of this entry »

An introduction into Russian Legal System and the Russian Judiciary has been posted.

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