Ukraine’s Parliament changes the course of the procedural periods during the quarantine

Прослухати онлайн Зупинити   On 18 June 2020, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law (the “Law”) that cancels the automatic extension of the procedural periods and makes it possible for courts to extend or renew such deadlines during the quarantine based on the party’s motion. The relevant amendments are to be introduced to the Code of Commercial Procedure, Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine and Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine. In April this year, the amendments to the procedural legislation on automatic extension of the procedural periods during the quarantine came into force. However, in practice, such automatic extension prevents courts from conducting proceedings in any civil, commercial or administrative case where at least one party is not active (for example, fails to file a response to a claim or to appeal a judgement), and forces courts to wait until the end of the quarantine.  Therefore, the main objective of the Law is to eliminate of loophole in the current procedural rules. For these purposes, the Law enables courts to renew and extend the procedural periods for a variety of procedural actions upon appropriate motions by the parties and interested non-parties for the duration of the quarantine. In addition, the Law stipulates that the procedural periods, which were extended in accordance with previous rules, expire after 20 days upon the Law entering into force. During this 20-day transition period, the parties and interested non-parties may extend the procedural periods in the manner established by the Law. We believe that the Law will enable the court and the parties to the proceedings to influence the possibility of the case being considered and moving it forward. The above specified changes to the legislation will come into effect on the day after the official publication of the Law, which occurs when it is signed by the President. If you wish to discuss any aspect of the above, please get in touch with any member of our dispute resolution team. Legislation: Draft Law “On Amendments to the Commercial Procedural Code of Ukraine, the Civil Procedural Code of Ukraine, the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine regarding the course of procedural periods during quarantine established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)” No. 3383 dated 23 April 2020 (in Ukrainian). Authors: Olexander Martinenko, Senior Partner, [email protected] Olga Shenk, Counsel, [email protected] Maria Orlyk, Partner, [email protected] Oleksandr Protsiuk, Counsel, [email protected] Pavlo Bogachenko, Associate, [email protected]