On 19 December 2023 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation issued Resolution № 59-P/2023 “On the Case Concerning the Verification of the Constitutionality of Paragraph Eight of Part Two of Article 59 of the Labour Code of the Russian Federation in Connection with the Complaint of Citizen E. A. Selkova” (hereinafter - the “Resolution”).

On 18 December 2023 the President of the Russian Federation issued decree No. 958 “On Amendments to Certain Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation”, according to which restrictions on certain types of deals with persons from “unfriendly” countries were extended.

The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has drafted amendments to Presidential decree No. 81 of March 1, 2022 (the "Decree"), which would extend the special procedure for transactions established by the Decree to transactions involving intellectual property. The draft is currently at the stage of anti-corruption expertise.

In accordance with the current version of the Decree, certain types of transactions with persons from "unfriendly" countries may be carried out only on the basis of permits issued by the Government Commission for Monitoring the Implementation of Foreign Investments in the Russian Federation (the "Government Commission").

According to the Group-IB research, last year the amount of publicly released databases of Russian companies six times outnumbered those unlawfully made public in 2021. At the same time, special provisions, regulating liability for personal data leaks, are not foreseen neither in the Code of Administrative Offenses of Russia nor in the Criminal Code.

Therefore, on 4 December 2023, the draft laws No. 502104-8 “On Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation” (“draft law No. 502104-8") and No. 502113-8 “On Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation” (“draft law No. 502113-8”), providing toughening liability for personal data leakage, were submitted to the State Duma.

According to the explanatory notes to these draft laws, currently existing liability is disproportional and incomparable to the potential social harm which can personal data leakage result in.

Recently the judicial practice on challenging sanctions imposed on Russian persons has begun to shape. We have already written about the first successful case with the participation of Russian person Dmitry Ovsyannikov, the former governor of Sevastopol, who managed to have himself excluded from the sanctions list.

Since that case was decided in February 2023, the sanctions removal practice has enriched by several other notable cases.

On 15 November 2023 the Russian Supreme Court has published a review of court practice in cases involving the assessment of actions of trademark holders.

The review analyzes cases and circumstances in which the parties conduct is considered to be in bad faith or, on the other hand, in good faith.

Over the past two years, the number of arbitration disputes on the recovery of unjust enrichment from foreign IT-companies has increased significantly. For the period from 2022 to 2023, according to the Arbitration Case File, dozens of claims were filed by Russian legal entities against the largest foreign software manufacturers: IBM Eastern Europe/Asia LLC, Dell LLC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise LLC, and HP Inc LLC.

Over the past two years, the number of arbitration disputes on the recovery of unjust enrichment from foreign IT-companies has increased significantly. For the period from 2022 to 2023, according to the Arbitration Case File, dozens of claims were filed by Russian legal entities against the largest foreign software manufacturers: IBM Eastern Europe/Asia LLC, Dell LLC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise LLC, and HP Inc LLC.