One of the trends in 2022 was that e-correspondence has been getting accepted as evidence. Use of e-mail and messengers in communicating with the employer has become the norm, and courts have been flexible in their reaction to these changes. The basis for this already exists in the laws. Article 71 of the Russian Civil Procedural Code classifies as written evidence the materials received via electronic or other communication means, and a similar norm exists in the Russian Commercial Arbitration Procedural Code.

Principal Associate Anna Silinskaya and Associate Viktoria Tikhonova on the Advokatskaya Gazeta site examined in detail the details of using correspondence in messengers as evidence, “This trend is well demonstrated in lawsuits on establishing the fact of employment relations. When examining such disputes, the courts often need to evaluate indirect evidence, which, in the absence of a labor contract, could confirm that a person was indeed an employee. In order to prove the existence of employment relations, an employee submits to the court screenshots of correspondence from messenger apps or e-mail. And in the past the courts viewed such evidence critically, but now they generally accept it as proper evidence.”

Full version of the material is available on the Advokatskaya Gazeta site here.