ABSTRACT
In the new Russia, where the major players in the economy are now private firms, the handling of commercial disputes represents an important new function of courts. The execution of decisions in commercial disputes differs fundamentally from that in most ordinary civil judgments, and so do the skills needed to accomplish it. The conventional wisdom was that well under 40 percent of the decisions of the arbitrazh courts in disputes among private firms achieved implementation. In 1993 leading justice officials began considering the replacement of the existing judicial enforcers with a service of armed bailiffs, trained and equipped to execute commercial judgments. The 1997 Law on Procedures for Implementing Decisions gives arbi-trazh court judges a new form of involvement in the implementation of their decisions, by allowing any affected actor (claimant, respondent, or third party) to complain to the court about any action or inaction on the part of the bailiff-enforcer.
