Ways to protect the rights of the buyer under international sales contracts in the case of the supply of goods from states applying economic sanctions to Russia

The recent increase in attempts to import into the territory of Russia goods produced in states applying economic sanctions against Russian citizens and organizations invariably entails an increase in statistics on bringing business entities to administrative responsibility and, as a result, an increase in the number of complaints to arbitration courts against the actions of customs authorities. The proposed study focuses on identifying possible civil legal ways to protect the rights of participants in trade, violated due to the application of economic sanctions or counter-sanctions to one of the parties to the contract of international sale. The aim of the study is to identify mechanisms for protecting the rights of the Russian buyer under the contract for the supply of foreign goods, which are the recognition of the transaction as invalid and the termination of the contract. Within the framework of the aim, the following objectives are to be achieved: (1) to assess the legality and integrity of the conduct of the foreign supplier and the Russian buyer in the performance of contractual obligations; (2) to determine how to protect the rights of the buyer in case of delivery of goods prohibited for import into the territory of Russia, and, as a result, seized by customs authorities; (3) to identify the substantive grounds for claims that may be brought against a foreign supplier. The subject of the study is the scientific and practical substantiation of the requirements of the Russian buyer to a foreign supplier to declare the transaction concluded between them invalid, as well as to terminate the contract due to improper performance by the supplier of its obligations. On the basis of a synthesis of the latest jurisprudence, the author made recommendations on what way to protect the violated rights of the buyer should be chosen in a specific situation. So, according to the author, the buyer, to whom the goods of the country of origin prohibited for import into the territory of Russia are delivered, should, as a matter of priority, sue the supplier to invalidate the transaction as circumvented by the law due to the contradiction of its content to the super-imperial norms of Russian law. This will allow the buyer to recover in restitution all losses caused by such a delivery. In the absence of legal grounds for invalidating the transaction, the Russian buyer is further entitled to demand the termination of this contract, since the fact of the loss of the opportunity for the buyer to acquire ownership of goods delivered from abroad and seized by customs authorities indicates the supplier's improper performance of its contractual obligations.

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