In its overview of the laws that become effective in November 2020, Pravo.ru provides the opinion of Egor Chilikov, partner at Petrol Chilikov, on amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation that introduce criminal liability for bribery of arbitrators.

Egor Chilikov, partner at Petrol Chilikov, has an ambivalent view of the initiative. “On the one hand, bribing arbitrators and taking bribes by arbitrators must apparently be prohibited; therefore, one may welcome the criminalization of these acts”, he says. On the other hand, he notes that in the realities of the Russian law enforcement system and the wide scope of ‘bribery’ criteria, this article may be used as leverage over arbitrators: “In light of the general trend towards narrowing the regulatory clamps around arbitrations, the initiative causes concern.”

The full overview text is available here.