Advocates of YUST helped the RPL and the Ministry of Culture to oblige the USA to return the Schneerson collection books to Russia

The Court of Arbitration of the city of Moscow concluded the consideration of the case on May 22 of 2014 and declared the operative part of the judgment, which upheld the claim by the Russian Public Library and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation to oblige the respondents to return to the RPL 7 books from the so-called Schneerson collection.

The Court also upheld the request – one of the first of its kind in the Russian arbitration practice – to exact monetary compensation in the case of non-fulfillment of the court act. If the respondents do not fulfil the judgment after it enters into force, US$50 000 will be exacted from them daily.

Yury Pilipenko, Senior Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", Evgeny Zhilin, Managing Partner of the Firm, Partner Alexander Yevdokimov and Advocate Mikhail Chugunov were the attorneys of the Russian Public Library and the Ministry of Culture.

We remind that the RPL, as requested by the Library of Congress of the USA, gave in January of 1994 to the former 7 books from the Schneerson collection for temporary gratuitous use within the scope of international exchange of library funds. The initial agreement was for 60 days, but the books were not returned to Russia. The RPL officially notified the Library of Congress of the need to return the books in March of 2013, but the notification was ignored. After that, the RPL and the Ministry of Culture or Russia (which exercises the powers of the books’ owner on behalf of Russia) filed the above-stated claim with the Court.