Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners has successfully represented BlaBlaCar, a global long-distance carpooling service, in a dispute against an unidentified group of bus carriers in Russia.
According to EPAM, the bus carriers filed a collective lawsuit to prohibit BlaBlaCar services from disseminating information about the company and its services on the territory of the Russian Federation. The bus carriers claimed that BlaBlaCar violated the law on passenger transport and consumer rights protection and provided illegal information about its services on its website and mobile application.
The Court of Arbitration in Moscow denied the claiming, holding that BlaBlaCar's activities complied with Russian legislation and that the distribution of information about long-distance travel is not prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Court also ruled that the group of the bus carriers was not authorized to file a collective claim and initiate a lawsuit.
The EPAM team consisted of Partner Valeriy Eremenko, Attorney Ilya Novoselov, Junior Associate Aleksander Frenkel and Anna Kalashnikova.
Editor's Note: On June 25, 2020, EPAM reported that the Moscow Arbitration Court's finding had been upheld both at the court of appeal and at the Moscow District Arbitration Court, which "examined the case in the format of an online meeting."
