🇷🇺🇨🇳 𝑹𝒖𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑪𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝑨𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒔 𝑫𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝑨𝒑𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒈𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝑪𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝑱𝒖𝒅𝒈𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑨𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒆 17 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒖𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒂-𝑪𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒂 𝑳𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒍 𝑨𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑻𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒚

Article 17 of the Treaty Between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China on Legal Assistance in Civil and Criminal Matters (signed at Beijing on 19 June 1992) (the "Treaty") provides:

''The applicant shall submit the application to the court which rendered the decision, and that court shall transmit it to the court of the other Contracting Party in accordance with the procedure provided in Article 2 of this Treaty.''

Russian and Chinese courts have already held that if an applicant disregards this Treaty rule, the application will be left without consideration (see, e.g., case No. A56-120092/2023).

Article 17 also contains an exception, which reads as follows:

''The applicant may, however, submit the application directly to the competent court of the Contracting Party in whose territory the decision is to be recognized and enforced, if he has his domicile or place of sojourn there.''

In Case No. A40-205251/25-19-1598, a Russian court — it seems for the first time — applied this exception.

A Chinese company, relying on the exception in Article 17, submitted an application for recognition and enforcement of a Chinese court's judgment directly to a Russian court, on the ground that it had a place of business in Russia.

The defendant objected and sought to have the application left without consideration.

The court granted the application.

The defendant's argument that, for the purposes of these court proceedings, the location of a legal entity is determined exclusively by the place of state registration (paragraph 2 of Article 54 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), was dismissed by the court because the Treaty guarantees the other Contracting Party's nationals equal access to the courts, and this guarantee cannot be artificially narrowed by the rules of domestic civil law.

Moreover, the court held that the applicant has a connection with the territory of the Russian Federation: it opened a settlement account with a Russian bank, registered with the tax authorities and obtained a tax code, and issued a power of attorney to Russian representatives.

According to the court, these facts confirm that the applicant had a "presence" within the meaning of Article 17 of the Treaty.

As a result, the court, by its decision dated 10 September 2026, recognized and enforced the Chinese court's judgment. The decision may be appealed.

ProArbitration.Ru ✈