Point of law: whether it is possible to recover a contributory compensation of moral harm (i.e., harm to company’s reputation) from a State body which adopted an unlawful decision against the company?

Alternative attitudes: 1) in such situation the proper remedy consists in deeming the decision of the State body to be unlawful (the view of inferior courts); or 2) deeming the decision of the State body to be unlawful does not per se constitute a just compensation of harm made to company’s reputation.

Ratio decidendi: the Presidium held the second version to be  legally correct, having pointed out that if a State authority or another agency has committed, in violation of the requirements of the Russian Constitution, an unlawful interference with person’s entrepreneurial activities, which resulted in making harm to the business reputation of such person, the latter should have an opportunity to receive a just monetary compensation of such harm in accordance with the current legislation. The Presidium has also emphasized that current legislation (Art 1100 of the Civil Code) does not consider fault as a necessary precondition of liability for harm caused by the dissemination of information undermining one’s business reputation; when eliciting causal link between the actions of the defendant and the unfavourable consequences  on the part of the plaintiff, courts must investigate whether defendant’s action could indeed have an impact upon third persons’ opinion about the plaintiff.

Practical consequences: the Judgment says that prior court decisions in analogous cases if inconsistent with this interpretation may be reversed in the procedure and within the limits envisaged by Art 311 of the Commercial Procedure Code.