The State Commercial Court of the city of Moscow has ruled to enforce a judgment of a New York State District Court in the absence of a treaty between Russia and the USA covering issues of legal assistance/mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments.

Even though the amount of the judgment in the case at hand was relatively small, around USD 560,000, the importance of its recognition in Russia should not be underestimated. The enforcement of the judgment in itself lays the foundations of practice of reciprocity between the courts of Russia and the US; it also marks a certain change of attitude to foreign judgments from the side of the Russian court system and finally, it encourages those who may be seeking to enforce foreign judgments in Russia but have been prevented from it by the absence of the bilateral treaty which directly provides for such possibility.