Russia Legal News Blast, Jan. 24, 2011

The Highest Arbitrazh Court has just published its guidelines (a resolution of its plenum) adopted on December 23, 2010 concerning application by the lower courts of the Law on Compensations due to delays in the administration of justice. The Law, adopted last year, was designed to stem the tide of Russian applications to European Court of Human Rights concerning compensations for the delays in administration of justice. We earlier posted a case where courts interpreted the amount of compensation due very restrictively. The newly published guidance follows the trend. It is a manual to lower court on what acceptable pretexts they should refuse applications pursuant to the Law. Procurators Lakhtin and Ibragimova did not exclude the possibility of a new case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. Due to preferential tax treatment, most large real estate transactions, even including a Russian buyer and a Russian seller, have up until now been conducted in Cyprus. However, with the new Russia -Cyprus tax treaty, these transactions would be taxable in Russia. “Kompania” magazine publishes a good analytical article on the subject.