© Author of the article: Vladimir Belov If you need free legal advice
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In our turbulent times, people are increasingly interested in issues related to courts:
- How to find out if your wife/husband has filed for divorce?
- Has the bank gone to court for non-payment of a loan online?
- How can I find out if I have been sued online?
In this article, we will figure out how to “get through” a person through the court databases by last name (full name) and find out whether anyone has filed a lawsuit against the person or not.
What is Arbitr.ru?
Arbitr.ru is a database of court documents. A database that is actively used by any lawyer today.
Arbitr.ru was created exclusively for arbitration proceedings. In the database you will not find decisions and court hearings that are considered in courts of general jurisdiction. These courts operate on a separate platform – the State Automated System “Justice”, which we will talk about in one of the following materials.
In our opinion, this is one of the most automated and convenient services of the judicial system of the Russian Federation. This statement can easily be confirmed with examples. It is the Card File of Arbitration Cases that is actively used by such consulting giants (owner of Interfax Information Agency), Kontur Focus (owner of SKB Kontur), Kartoteka.ru (owner of Kommersant Publishing House). These services provide their paid subscribers with information about legal disputes of contractors and partners needed by the customer.
The popularity of the service is also evident from the installation statistics of applications for working with Arbitr.ru. At the moment, more than 554 thousand owners of Apple equipment, 422 thousand owners of Android equipment and more than 75 thousand users of Microsoft mobile equipment use the service’s mobile applications.
Currently, more than 21.5 million cases are registered in the system, which are considered by 85 arbitration courts of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, 21 courts of appeal, 10 district courts and one court for intellectual rights.
According to statistics from the Judicial Department of the Russian Federation, in the structure of cases considered at the end of 2021, the bulk were cases arising from economic disputes and other civil legal relations - 78.4% of the total number of cases considered. Economic disputes and other cases arising from administrative and other public legal relations amounted to 12.7%. A total of 2% were considered about insolvency (bankruptcy), and questions to establish facts of legal significance amounted to only 0.1%.
What can you find on Arbitr.ru?
On this site you can find any procedural documents on arbitration disputes:
- the judge's decision to accept the claim for proceedings;
- the judge's ruling on scheduling a preliminary court hearing;
- a judge's ruling to defer payment of state fees;
- the judge's determination to assign the case to trial;
- the judge's ruling on securing the claim or refusing to secure the claim;
- the judge's decision to postpone the trial;
- court decision on the case;
- and other documents.
The documents are published in full, so a lawyer can glean a lot of useful information from them.
Unfortunately, claims and reviews of claims are not yet posted on Arbitr.ru. We hope that in the future such information will appear on the site.
It is obvious that the openness of arbitration justice disciplines both the participants in the process and the judges themselves. It is extremely difficult to conceal any actions of the parties or evidence, as well as signs of court bias.
Who can get acquainted with the case materials?
Participants in the proceedings or their representatives may submit an application or petition for the issuance of copies of documents:
- The guilty person against whom proceedings have been initiated;
- Injured party;
- Legal representatives of the perpetrators or victims;
- Representatives of a legal entity, if an organization is involved in the case.
If a full-fledged investigation requires the participation of specialists or experts, the materials are transferred to them for review. It is important that they are disinterested individuals and have the knowledge necessary to assist.
Documents of which courts can be found on Arbitr.ru?
The arbitration system in Russia looks like this:
- in the first instance, the case is considered by the arbitration court of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation (for example, the arbitration court of the Sverdlovsk region);
- if any of the parties wishes to appeal the decision of the court of first instance, then it can appeal to the appellate court (for example, to the Seventeenth Arbitration Court of Appeal);
- but the decision of the appellate court is not final. Any of the parties to the case can challenge it in cassation (for example, by appealing to the Federal Arbitration Court of the Ural District);
- Finally, there is also a higher court - the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Any party to the case who still hopes for success can appeal the decision previously made by the arbitration court to one of the panels of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
In addition, documents issued by the Intellectual Property Rights Court are also posted on the website in electronic form. He considers disputes related to intellectual property (trademarks, patents, trade names, inventions, etc.).
What sections might a lawyer need first?
On Arbitr.ru you can find all the procedural documents on the disputes you are interested in, issued by these courts.
Main sections for lawyers:
- File of arbitration cases (information about the progress of hearings on all trials is stored here);
- Bank of decisions of arbitration courts (all decisions made in all cases that can be used in your dispute);
- Calendar of court hearings of arbitration courts (schedule of trials).
My Arbitrator is a service for tracking key cases.
The service will help you track any changes and procedural decisions in the case you are interested in. Alerts will be sent to you by email. You can set up a subscription to updates in your Personal Account.
Another function of the service: the ability to submit procedural documents to the court electronically.
Since January 2021, it began accepting submissions of electronic documents to arbitration courts through authorization on the State Services portal. With the advent of this innovation, the use of an enhanced qualified electronic signature system by users was also introduced. Now, the owner of this signature does not need to provide a paper original to the court - electronic documents are also suitable.
Thus, it has become possible to remotely submit documents such as an application to secure evidence, an application to secure a claim, an application to secure property interests, an application to secure the execution of a judicial act, and others.
It is possible to obtain an electronic signature using government services provided by the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation. This can be done at one of the certification centers, the lists of which can be checked on the website of the Ministry of Communications.
Checking a person's criminal record online
Data on criminal records is confidential information contained in the closed database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Access to the database is available exclusively to employees of the court, prosecutor's office, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
An attempt at unauthorized access to the criminal record database may lead to administrative liability in accordance with paragraph 2 of Art. 13.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation in the form of a fine from 3 thousand to 70 thousand rubles, depending on the status of the offender.
However, there are also legal ways to obtain such data.
State Services website
The Gosuslugi service portal does not allow you to check third-party citizens for a criminal record, but it does make it possible to order a certificate of no criminal record. For this it is enough:
- log in to the system using your account;
- make an application for the service;
- select a multifunctional center where you can pick up the original document.
To obtain a certificate, it is enough to present a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation.
How to search for cases in the Arbitr.ru file cabinet?
In the file cabinet you can find any dispute that interests you. How? Enter the case number, if you know it, or the name of one of the parties to the dispute (you don't have to enter the full business name). To narrow your search, specify the arbitration court hearing the case.
See the algorithm for searching a case by company name
You can also search for a case by its unique number. Perhaps it was provided to you by colleagues or participants in the process.
See the algorithm for searching a case by case number
Below we see detailed information about a specific legal dispute. Here the plaintiff and defendant, third parties are indicated, and the procedural documents issued by the court are laid out in calendar order.
For example, you can click and download the Decree on scheduling a court hearing to your computer.
It will look like this:
In the Decision Bank you can find any court decision of the arbitration court.
In the Calendar, you have the opportunity to clarify what date a preliminary or regular hearing is scheduled for a specific case.
All hearings in arbitration courts (except for those in which state secrets are disclosed) are held in the open. You can come as a spectator to any process. The judge, of course, will ask the parties whether they are against your presence. But again, if no commercial or state secrets are revealed during the dispute, it will not be possible to remove you from the courtroom.
Listen, record, learn from the best!
Why check a company for arbitration claims?
Cooperation with an unreliable company often entails not only tax penalties and financial losses, but also loss of a license and suspension of activities.
Check the company in a timely manner for lawsuits based on the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) - make sure that the potential partner values its business reputation and fulfills its obligations, and does not have any traps in its arsenal designed for clients’ ignorance of the intricacies of the law. By checking the counterparty for arbitration claims using the TIN, you will learn:
- how often does a potential partner appear in court as a defendant, that is, violate civil and administrative legislation;
- how many times has he gone to court as a plaintiff, bringing claims to clients or partners;
- what type of claims were made against the future counterparty;
- amounts paid by the company under court decisions. This information will tell you how seriously the company you are going to cooperate with violated the law;
- whether the fact of bankruptcy was recorded, it is possible that it was intentional, for example, to evade taxes or other mandatory payments.
The information provided by checking the counterparty for legal claims will help you draw correct conclusions about the reputation and financial condition of the company with which you plan to do business, and will allow you to objectively assess the financial and legal risks of cooperation.
Use free instructions from ConsultantPlus experts to properly organize contract work.
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How to check a counterparty?
On the Arbitr.ru website you can find legal disputes regarding any company (or individual entrepreneur) that interests you.
For example, you want to make a deal with someone. Be careful, in case your counterparty is a willful defaulter, from whom dozens of other companies’ debts are being “extorted” in court.
We go to the site, enter the name of the counterparty and look.
See example search results
It is important to check existing clients, especially those who have accumulated large receivables to you. The longer the payment delay, the less likely it is that you will eventually receive it in full.
A special category of cases is bankruptcy
In Russia, any company, individual entrepreneur, or even just a citizen can be declared bankrupt.
How does this happen? The creditor or the potential bankrupt himself applies to the arbitration court with a bankruptcy petition. And information about this is also published on Arbitr.ru. With a red letter “B”.
Why is it important? Knowing that a bankruptcy claim for a company or individual has been filed with an arbitration court, you can decide for yourself whether it is worth concluding a deal with such a person. As part of the bankruptcy procedure, on average, creditors' claims are satisfied in the amount of only 3-5% of the total debt. In other words, if a potential bankrupt owes you 100 rubles, then after he is declared bankrupt, you can expect to receive 3-5 rubles. And then after a few years.
Are all court cases searchable?
Some categories of cases are not published on the Internet. The exception applies to lawsuits that involve:
- Defense and security of the Russian Federation.
- Family law disputes.
- Crimes related to sexual integrity.
- The requirement to recognize the incapacity of a citizen.
- Issues related to compulsory psychiatric care and hospitalization.
- Filling out information in civil status acts.
In addition, orders of district and city courts related to administrative issues are not published on the Internet. They publish only general information about convicts and accusers, the progress of cases and the result without decoding.
Archive of documents of the Supreme Arbitration Court
Finally, on Arbitr.ru you can find decisions and rulings issued in previous years by the Supreme Arbitration Court.
The SAC itself no longer functions (its functions were transferred to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation), however, many positions of the Supreme Arbitration Court, recorded in arbitration practice, still retain their value. When participating in processes and drafting legal documents, lawyers actively use the provisions contained in the definitions and resolutions of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation.
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