Judicial Act Review for consistency with higher-court case law: lease termination (case No. А41-409/2025)

PROPOSITION 1. At the lessee’s request, a lease agreement may be terminated early by a court if the lessor fails to provide the property for use or creates obstacles to its use

Provision: para. 1 of Art. 620 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. ·  Status: ✅ Confirmed

The proposition reproduces the wording of para. 1 of Art. 620 of the Civil Code verbatim. The relevant generalised case law on the grounds for early termination of a lease is Information Letter No. 66 of the Presidium of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation (it primarily concerns termination at the lessor’s request—Art. 619 of the Civil Code; the mirror mechanism under Art. 620 is not addressed separately). No inconsistencies were identified.

PROPOSITION 2. A contractual provision granting the lessor the right to unilaterally restrict (terminate) the lessee’s access to the premises constitutes a method of securing the lessee’s performance of its obligations and is common in business custom

Provision: Arts. 329 and 421 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. ·  Status: ❓ Not covered (search conducted)

No act of the higher courts characterizing access restrictions as a “method of securing performance” or a “business custom” was found in the database; the lexical search produced 0 verbatim matches. Such provisions are addressed in general terms by Resolution No. 23-П of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation: contractual provisions departing from default rules are permissible only if the grounds are clearly formulated, connected with a culpable material breach, and the court verifies that they are applied in good faith. This Resolution neither confirms nor refutes the characterization, but establishes the limits of judicial review.

PROPOSITION 3. The lessor’s lawful exercise of a contractual right to restrict access does not constitute “creating obstacles to use” under Art. 620 of the Civil Code and does not give the lessee grounds for termination

Provision: para. 1 of Art. 620 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. ·  Status: ❓ Not covered (search conducted)

No act of the higher courts directly distinguishing a lawful contractual access restriction from “creating obstacles to use” under Art. 620 of the Civil Code was found in the database. A related line of case law is Ruling No. 41-КГ24-64-К4 of the Judicial Chamber for Civil Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation: creating conditions that make it impossible to achieve the purpose of the lease constitutes the lessor’s failure to perform its duty to ensure use. It concerns the factual impossibility of use and does not directly address a contractual restriction imposed as a sanction.

PROPOSITION 4. The parties may exclude (prohibit) the lessee’s unilateral set-off of counterclaims by contract; where such a prohibition applies, set-off does not terminate the obligation

Provision: Arts. 410 and 411 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation; para. 3 of Art. 407 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. ·  Status: ✅ Confirmed

Supreme Court Plenum Resolution No. 6: para. 21— the parties may provide that unilateral set-off is impossible and that obligations terminate only by agreement; para. 18—set-off produces no legal effect if it contradicts the contractual terms. The court’s application of Clause 8.4 of the agreement (prohibiting the lessee from effecting set-off) is consistent with this Plenum-level position. No inconsistencies were identified.

PROPOSITION 5. A short-term access restriction (from 11:00 to 19:14) that the lessee remedied on its own does not constitute a material breach warranting termination under Art. 620 of the Civil Code

Provision: para. 1 of Art. 620 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation; Art. 450 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. ·  Status: ❓ Not covered (search conducted)

No act of the higher courts assessing the short duration and subsequent removal of an obstacle as circumstances precluding termination at the lessee’s request (Art. 620 of the Civil Code) was found in the database. Related case law addresses the mirror situation of claims brought by lessors (Art. 619 of the Civil Code): Information Letter No. 14 of the Presidium of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation, para. 8 (remedying the breach within a reasonable time removes the grounds for termination) and Resolution No. 17426/08 of the Presidium of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation (remedying the breach after the claim has been filed is not, in itself, a ground for refusing termination). They do not directly address the assessment of the materiality of an access restriction imposed by the lessor.