On the rules of indexation of awarded sums of money

V.I. Polevov won the case for the recovery of the actual value of his share in LLC. Subsequently he appealed to the court with a request to index the recovered sum, referring to only partial fulfillment of the court judgment.

Two courts denied the claim. The courts pointed out that there was no federal law that provided for indexation of the sums of money in the disputed legal relations, nor was there an agreement between the parties that provided for the possibility of indexation. In this case the plaintiff was not deprived of the right to reimburse its financial losses by the rules of substantive law (Articles 317, 393-395 of the Civil Code).

Position of the cassation:

?Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation № 40-P from 26.07.2021, part 1 of Art. 183 of the APC RF is declared in violation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation insofar as it – in the absence of the existing legal regulation mechanism of indexation of the amounts recovered by the court – does not contain the criteria according to which the indexation provided by it must be implemented;

? under such circumstances, the courts were not entitled to deny the indexation on the grounds that the contract or the federal law does not provide for its mechanism, as in this part of Article 183 of the APC RF came into contradiction with the prescriptions of the Constitution of the RF and shall not be applied;

? the courts also erroneously pointed out as the basis for refusal to index the awarded sums of money that the applicant has the right to use the ways of compensation for financial losses provided by civil law. The claim for indexation of the awarded sums of money and the claim for payment of interest in accordance with substantive legal norms represent two possible ways of compensation of losses, of which indexation of the awarded sums of money, unlike the civil law ways, is aimed at compensation of losses caused directly by non-execution of the judicial act, and the refusal to apply one of these ways on grounds related to the possibility for the applicant to resort to another way of compensation of losses is not right

? until the introduction of changes in the legal regulation, the courts should use as a criterion for implementation of the indexation stipulated by Article 183 of the APC RF the official statistical information on the index of consumer prices (tariffs) for goods and services, which is available on the official website of the federal executive body, which performs the functions of forming official statistical information on social, economic, demographic, environmental and other social processes.

The judicial acts were cancelled, and the case was sent for a new examination.

Decision of the AS NWO of 25.07.22 in case No. A56-76040/2015.