Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Are the aircraft concerned not still owned by the (non-Russian) lessors ?
the leased aircraft that have been stolen by Russia are almost without doubt still registered with a full interest of the ownership with the Capetown Convention, the registry being in Ireland. Where the terms of the lease have been breached, then the owner has to revert to civil action for the breaches. The curiosity in this case is the state is acting illegally, the aircraft had registration, and then the state is complicit with the breach of the lease agreements, and further now disregards airworthiness matters to which the state has an obligation as a signatory to ICAO.
The response by Russia to sanctions may have been expedient at the time but the long term damage is substantial. It will be a brave owner that rents or leases or allows any asset to enter, overfly or otherwise have any exposure to Russia for the future. Money talks, but the loading out the front end for any future involvement with Russia would be higher than outright purchase price...
There are some odd ICAO conventions that act to prohibit a state from enforcing liens on an aircraft in a 3rd state... local judgements can be enforced by the state, so a visiting aircraft that is in breach of a contract from another country could have say, Chinese court judgements enforced. The states of manufacture could also raise ADs based on reported non compliance with the AMMs grounding the aircraft. That would be disregarded by Russia, but the Chinese etc would probably happily ground those aircraft on entry to their territory, under their obligations to ICAO and state foreign aircraft safety oversight rules.
Where Russia disregards international law which seems to have been their historical intent, nationalising the assets works within their own boundary, but doesn't get a signature of release from the owner with the cape town convention.
China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau...) is a signatory state to the treaty and would be a party with obligations under Article 43 to enforce court orders issued in compliance with Chapter III Default remedies:
- Article 8 — Remedies of chargee
- Article 12 — Additional remedies
- Article 13 — Relief pending final determination
China seems to be obliged to take action on this matter, and they are heading it off at the pass by their request for provenance, it locks those assets inside Russia which also happens to be a treaty signatory is unlikely to meet any of their obligations.
Once again, the treaty doesn't make allowance for a lawless state, one that just cares less about their treaty obligations. There is a method of termination by a state, but there is no method to remove the state, although the Article 61 — Review Conferences, amendments and related matters permits amendment that can cure the Russia syndrome. Cynically, one can assume that a method of removal of a rogue,"Russia like state" is not needed, they are effectively removing themselves from future need of such treaties, they can continue playing with North Korea all by themselves. As Russia is a complicit party to the breaches of the treaty obligations, the lessors may have a ready fund to dig into in the bank accounts that have been frozen, lawyers are going to be the only winners of the criminal actions of Russia in Ukraine.
It's hard to imagine any manager in the future whetting the appetite of their board by using the term "lease", "JV", "loan" or similar in connection to the name "Russia". Normally, a return to "business as usual" would happen promptly, but the further confirmation that Russia disregards every convention that the rest of the world considers reasonable will make it difficult to regain any trust in their word. The immediate damage to Russia by the ego of Putin is just beginning. Peter Zeihan may well be correct that Russia will not survive as the RF, disintegration may be coming along sooner than later.