Maxim Ali has commented to AG on rejection of a British company’s lawsuit over anti-Russian sanctions
A British company applied to the Kirov Regional Commercial Court with a claim against the individual entrepreneur Ivan Kozhevnikov for compensation for infringement of its exclusive rights to works of fine art and the relevant trademarks. The claim was considered in summary proceedings and a decision was made to dismiss the claims. Motivating the decision, the court referred to the restrictive measures imposed on Russia and the status of the plaintiff (the company is located in the UK).
Maxim Ali, Head of Intellectual Property & Information Technology Practice at Maxima Legal, said the ruling caused a wide resonance in the legal community. “It is legitimate. Even if we abstract away from the normative material, there are serious logical contradictions in the court’s decision. It is completely inexplicable why the imposition of the UK sanctions on Russia is an abuse by the plaintiff, a British company. It is clear that the company did not impose sanctions, much less against a specific Russian IP. Furthermore, at the time the lawsuit was filed, no sanctions had yet been imposed, and neither had the February 28 presidential decree,” the expert told Advokatskaya Gazeta newspaper.
According to Maxim, it should be understood that the new “anti-sanction” amendments to the legislation do not destroy the right to protect intellectual property, including that of foreign companies from unfriendly jurisdictions. “I do not rule out that we will see restrictions on intellectual property rights in the future – such powers have recently been granted to the Russian government. However, I would not “bury” intangible assets prematurely, nor would I overestimate the significance of the court ruling, in which some see almost a new political and legal trend. Most likely, we are dealing with an excess at the level of the court of first instance, and we can hope that the mistakes will be corrected by the appeal,” suggested Maxim Ali.
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