The Supreme court has amended the regulation of pledges, established by the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation earlier. The Decree of the Plenum of the Supreme Court No. 45 "On some issues of dispute resolution connected to pledge" dated 24.12.2020 (hereinafter – DPSC No. 45) derogates the Decree of the Plenum dated 12.07.2012 No. 42 (hereinafter – DPSAC No. 42) and resolves main problems raised in connection with the reform of this institute in 2015.

Starting from the beginning of 2021, new rules for the retail sale of goods (the “Rules”) entered into force. The Rules will be valid until January 1, 2027. The Rules are developed within the framework of the regulatory guillotine and replace a few previously existing documents (rules for retail trade, rules for distance selling of goods, rules for commission trading).

On January 5, 2021 the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 3718-r dated December 31, 2020 (the Decree) was published. In accordance with the Decree, Pharmasintez JSC, a Russian generic company, has been granted a 1-year compulsory license to use the inventions of the US companies Gilead Sciences Inc. and Gilead Pharmasset LLC protecting Remdesivir subject to a “fair compensation”¹.

One month after adopting Practice Review No. 3, the Presidium of the Supreme Court on December 23, adopted the next (fourth) review for the year 2020.

Federal Law No. 407-FZ dated December 8, 2020 made material amendments to the section of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation which regulates distance work. The necessity for such amendments became evident as soon as employers started to switch their staff to work from home in large numbers at the beginning of 2020.

Starting from 2021, the amendments to the Labor Code regarding the regulation of labor in non-commercial (non-profit) organizations have come into force.

In its recent review of judicial practice on employment cases by Russian courts², the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (the Supreme Court) defined legal strategies that should be guided when considering disputes related to the termination of an employment contract at the employer’s initiative. Below we consider the main conclusions of the Supreme Court.

On November 26, 2020 the Government of the Russian Federation adopted a Resolution introducing amendments to the legislation on enforcement proceedings. In particular, the Resolution changes the procedure for notification of persons involved in enforcement proceedings. The new procedure provides for the sending of notices of enforcement proceedings via the Unified Portal of State Services without an application from users for the transfer of legally significant electronic notices to them from state authorities. At the moment to receive notifications electronically it is necessary to submit a special application.

On November 25, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation adopted the third Judicial Review for 2020.