How much does the first consultation cost?

The consultation is free when an engagement is signed: if you entrust the matter to us, the first meeting costs nothing. At it we go through the situation and tell you whether the matter has prospects in court, what scenarios are available and roughly what running the case will cost. This information does not constitute a public offer (art. 437(1) of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

Do you guarantee the outcome of a case?

No, and nobody can: the outcome of litigation is decided by the court. We are answerable for the quality of our work, for the pace and for making sure you always know what stage the matter is at. You receive our assessment of the prospects before the engagement is signed.

Who will handle my matter?

Every matter has a responsible partner. He assembles the team for the task — a litigator, a tax specialist, a valuer — and remains your point of contact until the end. Where the task requires the status of an advocate, advocates of the Kovalev, Malyutov, Tsypkalo & Partners Moscow Bar Association are brought in under a cooperation agreement.

Do you work with the regions?

Yes. We have two offices — in Moscow and Mariupol — and we run matters throughout Russia. The engagement can be signed remotely, documents are accepted electronically, and we stay in touch by telephone, messenger and e-mail.

How do the firm's lawyers and the advocates work together?

Legal review, transaction support, insolvency and representation in commercial and civil proceedings are carried out by the lawyers of Kovalev & Partners LLC under an engagement with the company. Tasks that require the status of an advocate — criminal defence, attendance at searches and interviews, an advocate's formal request — are carried out by advocates of the Kovalev, Malyutov, Tsypkalo & Partners Moscow Bar Association: the company has a cooperation agreement with the Bar Association, while the agreement on the provision of legal assistance is made by the client directly with the advocate (art. 25(1) of Federal Law No. 63-FZ of 31 May 2002 “On Advocacy and the Bar in the Russian Federation”). For you this is a single point of entry: we assemble the team.

What happens after I send an enquiry?

We read your description of the situation and come back within one working day: we ask clarifying questions and tell you what we can realistically do. We do not pass your documents or your description of the situation to anyone.

DIGITAL LAW / 03

Marketplaces and platforms

Your sales run through a marketplace, and one side sets the terms: penalties, deductions from payouts, blocked listings. Or you are building a platform yourself and answer to sellers and buyers. We analyse the contract with the platform and defend the company's position.

Call: +7 (499) 460-63-47

What is happening

The marketplace has withheld a significant sum from payouts for "breach of the rules" or blocked the seller account following a rights holder's complaint. Support replies with templates, the stock sits in the platform's warehouse, and turnover keeps falling.

The platform has updated its terms: new commissions and logistics fees, compulsory participation in promotions at the seller's expense, different payout dates. The seller needs to know what can be challenged, how to record the changes and where the line of what is acceptable lies.

A company is launching its own aggregator, booking service or classifieds site and wants to understand what a platform operator's obligations now include: rules for partners, a dispute resolution procedure, handling of user data and liability towards buyers.

What the law says

Since autumn 2025 a federal law on the platform economy has been in force. It introduces the concepts of an intermediary platform operator and a partner, and sets requirements for platform rules, the procedure for changing them, account blocks and pre-trial dispute resolution.
A seller's relationship with a platform rests on a contract of adhesion. The Civil Code allows the adhering party to demand amendment or termination of a contract containing clearly onerous terms, but for businesses this rule operates within narrow limits, and the position has to be built carefully.
Where a platform holds a dominant position, its conduct may be assessed under Federal Law No. 135-FZ of 26 July 2006 "On Protection of Competition": the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) considers complaints about imposed terms and discrimination against sellers.
Towards buyers, Law of the Russian Federation No. 2300-1 of 7 February 1992 "On Consumer Rights Protection" (the Consumer Protection Law) applies, and it deals separately with an aggregator owner's liability for inaccurate information about goods and sellers.
Buyer and partner data is processed under Federal Law No. 152-FZ of 27 July 2006 "On Personal Data". For a platform operator these are obligations of its own; for a seller the question is on what basis it receives customer contact details and what it may do with them.
Disputes between companies and a platform go to the commercial court named in the terms, after a pre-trial claim procedure which under the Commercial Procedure Code (APK) generally takes 30 calendar days unless the contract sets another period.

What we do

We analyse the platform's terms and rules, reconstruct which conditions changed and when, and test whether penalties and deductions are justified.
We draft support requests and claim letters so that they serve both as the pre-trial procedure and as evidence for court.
We litigate against marketplaces to recover withheld sums, retrieve goods from their warehouses and challenge unlawful blocks.
We prepare complaints to the FAS and support competition cases where the problem is not a single incident but the platform's systematic conduct.
For platform owners, we draft rules, partner and user terms and a dispute resolution procedure in line with the platform economy law.
We set up the processing of buyer and partner personal data: consents, the privacy policy and the division of roles between the platform and sellers.

What we will need from you

The platform terms as they stood on the date of the dispute, and earlier versions if you have them.
Sales and payout reports, breakdowns of deductions, and notices of penalties and blocks.
Correspondence with platform support and screenshots of the seller account with visible dates.
Product documents: certificates and declarations of conformity, trade mark registrations or licence agreements.
For platform owners: a description of the business model, current user agreements and a data flow diagram.

HOW THE WORK IS BUILT

How the work is built

Review

We look at the terms, reports and correspondence, assess the amount at stake and how provable the position is, and propose tactics.

1 meeting

Claim letter

We send a claim with calculations and references to the platform's terms and, where needed, prepare a complaint to the FAS in parallel.

30 days or the period in the terms

Court

We file the claim with the commercial court and represent the company at every hearing.

per court schedule

Prevention

We help rebuild how you work with the platform: recording changes to the terms, keeping reports, a routine for contesting penalties.

1–2 weeks

NEARBY

Other services in this practice

All services in this practice

QUESTIONS

Frequent questions

Can a marketplace change its terms unilaterally?

The terms of the large platforms expressly allow it, and the platform economy law sets a procedure for changes, including advance notice to partners. If the platform did not follow that procedure or a term is clearly onerous, there are grounds to dispute it; we assess this against the specific version of the terms.

Is it worth suing a marketplace over deductions?

That depends on the amount, the evidence and how the platform's rules are worded. We first reconstruct the picture from the reports and correspondence and tell you how provable the position is. Sometimes a well-drafted claim letter changes the conversation, but nobody can know that in advance.

We run a small aggregator. Does the platform economy law apply to us?

It depends on your model: the law applies to intermediary platforms that bring sellers or service providers together with buyers and customers, and some requirements apply only to large platforms. We test your model against the law's criteria and tell you what is mandatory and what is not.

NEXT STEP

Let us discuss your situation

The consultation is free of charge when an engagement agreement is signed: on it we say what has to be done and by when.

Call: +7 (499) 460-63-47