Qualification of Cross-Border Contractual Obligations

Development summary

P. M. Filippov and I. B. Ilovaysky set out how cross-border contractual relations without a choice of applicable law are interpreted and qualified in Russian legal practice. The central question is how qualification affects the determination of the applicable law through successive analytical stages.

The authors divide the process into preliminary qualification, primary qualification and secondary qualification or resolution of the dispute on the merits. Drawing on formal legal, comparative legal, historical legal and legal-interpretive methods, they argue that Articles 1187(2) and 1211(2) of the Russian Civil Code and Supreme Court Plenum Resolution No. 24 of 9 July 2019 require amendment or clarification.