Originally from: Arbitration Law of Russia: Practice and Procedure

Under Art. 1 of the Arbitration Act the following disputes may be resolved through international commercial arbitration: (i) disputes arising from contractual or other civil relationships involved in foreign trade and other kinds of international business where the place of business of at least one of the parties is located abroad, (ii) disputes between enterprises with a foreign interest and international associations and organisations established in the Russian Federation or their members, and (iii) disputes between the parties specified in (ii) and other parties subject to Russian Federation law.

The same article states that the Arbitration Act will not affect any other law of the Russian Federation by operation of which certain disputes may not be submitted to arbitration or may be submitted to arbitration only according to provisions other than those of the Arbitration Act. Under Russian law, as a general rule, all commercial and other civil law disputes are arbitrable unless otherwise provided by federal law. Public law disputes, such as disputes arising out of public misfeasance, cannot be referred to arbitration.1 This approach is supported by Russian legal scholars.2

There is only one type of dispute that federal law expressly treats as non-arbitrable and that is bankruptcy.3 However, as we will see below, there are a number of instances in which the Russian courts treat certain disputes as being non-arbitrable in the absence of an express provision to that effect.