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Больше хочешь — меньше получишь: исследование зависимости между размером исковых требований и их удовлетворяемостью в российских арбитражных судах
Is there undercompensation of damages in Russian arbitrazh courts? Leveraging the data on court rulings we establish a relationship between claim sum and award ratio (i. e. the ratio of award sum to claim sum). Having studied the universe of awards for non-contractual disputes granted by courts of first instance in 2014-2019 in the country, we report three stylized facts suggesting undercompensation. First, the larger the amount claimed the lower the award sum granted to plaintiffs is. We call it ‘the law of declining compensation’. Second, the law of declining compensation is more pronounced in disputes where judges enjoy wider discretion in determining the award sum and vice versa. Third, in disputes with wider discretion we observe differing relationship between claim sum and award ratio in Moscow and St. Petersburg courts and other courts. While in capital city courts the award ratio is increasing in claim sum starting from a certain amount, in regional courts the award ratio is strictly decreasing in claim sum. We explain the uncovered undercompensation of plaintiffs’ damages by two cognitive biases: omission bias (propensity to maintain status quo even though inaction brings same or larger harm) and anchoring bias (tendency to rely on the first piece of evidence when deciding on quantum).