Are Cocks Animals? ‘Presumptions’ and Facts of ‘Common Knowledge’ in Cases Involving Sanctioned Persons

The article analyses in detail the judicial practice that has been forming since the end of 2021 on the application of Article 248.1 of the Arbitrazh Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in disputes between sanctioned Russian persons and companies from ‘unfriendly’ jurisdictions in the view of the classical doctrines of law of evidence. The author concludes that modern approaches of Russian courts to proving in these cases, despite the fact that they are in line with the general policy of supporting domestic business, are difficult to describe in procedural terms known to jurisprudence. Such an observation makes suspect that we are facing an attempt to solve a problem with procedural tools, which is actually remotely related to evidence, but lies in the plane of substantive law, in the sphere of regulating economic (non-procedural) relations with ‘unfriendly’ foreigners.