The head of the collegium of the Supreme Court for civil cases opposed the payment of penalties to investors

Sergey Astashov, Chairman of the Judicial Collegium for Civil Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, spoke out against the collection of penalties, fines and moral damages in favor of investors in their disputes with brokers. At the same time, he supported the proposal of the Bank of Russia to transfer disagreements between investors and brokers to the competence of financial ombudsmen, reports RAPSI.

“Yes, in my opinion, the expansion of the competence of resolving disputes between investors and brokers by financial ombudsmen would be expedient and reasonable. But! It would be too much to extend guarantees and sanctions to them: fines, penalties, moral damages that are given to consumers. Still, this is a way to make money and the spirit of the law on buyers and the protection of their rights is not very consistent,” Mr. Astashov said at the session of the XI St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPBILF).

The judge added that in order to transfer disputes between investors and brokers to the competence of financial commissioners, it is not necessary to amend the law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights”, because it was not written for consumers of financial services.

In addition, according to Mr. Astashov, the terms “consumer” in the laws “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” and “On the Commissioner for the Rights of Consumers of Financial Services” are not similar, but autonomous, therefore, the inclusion of disputes between investors and brokers in the jurisdiction of financial ombudsmen should not cause procedural problems.

In mid-April, it became known that the Bank of Russia intended to conduct an experiment to resolve disputes between professional market participants and clients with the involvement of a financial ombudsman. The Central Bank believes that since the client is obviously a weak party, the financial commissioner will be able to more effectively resolve disagreements. We are not talking about losses associated with market risks, because investments are always associated with risk, the Central Bank explained. The financial ombudsman and the independent experts involved by him could, for example, resolve disputes caused by failures in brokers’ mobile applications.

Read more about the initiative in the material “Professional participants were prescribed a financial ombudsman”.

Erdni Kagaltynov