Economic Sanctions as a New Cause of Unenforceability of an Arbitration Agreement

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation first disclosed the concept of unenforceability of an arbitration agreement in paragraph 30 of the Plenum Resolution No. 53 dated December 10, 2019 “On the performance by the courts of the Russian Federation of the functions of assistance and control in relation to arbitration proceedings, international commercial arbitration”, with a full list of grounds for the unenforceability of an arbitration agreement has not yet been disclosed either in doctrine or in judicial practice. Taking into account the rapidly changing political and economic circumstances, which have a significant impact on arbitration proceedings, the author in the article examines economic sanctions as a new basis for the unenforceability of an arbitration agreement, judicial practice on this issue, and also proposes a definition of the unenforceability of an arbitration agreement.