The astreinte in the Italian and Russian Administrative (Judicial) and Civil Proceedings

Abstract

This paper focuses on the last indirect coercive measure introduced by the Italian and Russian legislation. After a general overview of the coercive measures already known to Italian law, also from an historical perspective, this paper identifies – through a parallelism commonly followed between the astreinte under Art. 114(4)(e) of the Italian Administrative Procedure Code and those under Art. 614-bis of the Italian Civil Procedure Code – the main traits of the new rule as to conditions, calculation of the amount due and beneficiary of the payment.

The author’s intention is to investigate the rationale of Art. 114, dealing with the issue of its applicability to obligations having a monetary content, so as to assess the actual possibility to make a complete parallelism between the two types of astreinte at issue: those for administrative proceedings and those for civil proceedings.

In contrast to the Italian experience, astreinte in Russian civil and administrative judicial proceedings is not directly regulated by procedural legislation. Astreinte unexpectedly appeared in the case law of commercial courts in 2013 and was / became widely discussed by scholars. From June 1, 2015, the institute quite similar to the astreinte was introduced by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

The authors mean to reveal the nature of the astreinte and scope of its application both in civil and administrative judicial proceedings.