The subject of this study is the legal conflicts arising from the transformation of international legal countermeasures (retorsions) into a domestic mechanism for the compulsory seizure of property from foreign persons associated with unfriendly states. The article analyzes norms of international law, the civil legislation of the Russian Federation, special Russian counter-sanction legislation, as well as subordinate regulatory acts – Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation introducing asset blocking, temporary administration, and the first elements of counter-sanction seizure. The aim of the work is to identify gaps and contradictions in the current legal framework, to substantiate the impossibility of qualifying counter-sanction seizure within the existing civil law institutions (confiscation, requisition, taking for state needs, nationalization), and to propose concrete legislative solutions to the problem, including the need to adopt a special federal law establishing a judicial procedure for seizure, a compensation mechanism, and the protection of the rights of bona fide third parties. The study employs formal-legal, comparative-legal and systematic methods, as well as analysis of normative legal acts and judicial practice. As a result of the research, the concept of “counter-sanction seizure” is substantiated as an independent ground for compulsory termination of ownership, not provided for by the current Article 235 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, and distinct from confiscation, requisition, taking for state needs, and nationalization. Key legal conflicts and gaps are identified: the absence of a judicial procedure for seizure, the uncertainty of the compensation mechanism, the indefinite duration of measures preceding seizure (asset blocking on type “C” accounts and temporary administration), which gives rise to the phenomenon of “quasi-termination” of ownership. The conclusion is made on the necessity of amending Article 235 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and adopting a special federal law (or detailing the procedure in Federal Law No. 127-FZ) that would establish a judicial procedure for seizure, a compensation mechanism, and the protection of the rights of bona fide third parties.
Nikita Sergeevich Kutovoi (Fri,) studied this question.