Lawsuits instead of keys: who earns money from state support of the automotive industry

The Russian automotive industry is undergoing the biggest transformation in recent decades. After the withdrawal of a number of key foreign manufacturers from the market, the government actually had to reassemble the industry: look for new partners, maintain production sites, maintain demand and at the same time create conditions for technological independence. However, an unexpected obstacle stood in the way of restarting the domestic automotive industry. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Government support

In order to adjust the market, significant government funds were allocated to support the automotive industry and stimulate demand. In the 2026 budget, 20 billion rubles are provided for the preferential car loan program, and another 30 billion rubles are allocated for preferential leasing. In general, about 65 billion rubles are provided for financing programs to support the automotive market in the period from 2024 to 2026.

It's not just about helping individual businesses. The automotive industry remains one of the most important sectors of the Russian economy, generating demand for products from metallurgy, the chemical industry, mechanical engineering, logistics, and the service sector. Each workplace in the automotive industry creates several jobs in related industries.

A few years ago, the Russian car market was integrated into the global production chains of Western corporations. Today, the departed brands are being replaced by new players, primarily from China. Assembly plants are being deployed at Russian sites, new supply chains are being formed, and logistics routes are developing.

The ultimate goal of the support is to gradually increase the localization of production. So far, a significant part of the cars produced in Russia are mostly assembled from imported components. However, it is precisely the preservation of demand that should ensure investments in the further development of production facilities, the localization of components and the creation of their own engineering competencies. This path has already been followed by many countries that have created national automotive industries, for example, India, China, Brazil. In the early stages, dependence on foreign suppliers, technological compromises, and the need for large-scale government support are inevitable. In fact, the government is investing not so much in current car sales as in the future independence of automotive production.

What went wrong

However, the effectiveness of any support program is determined not only by the amount of funds invested. Over the past two years, the government has had to adjust regulatory mechanisms in several sectors of the economy at once, from construction to e-commerce and the financial market. There is one reason: certain legal mechanisms created to protect bona fide market participants began to be used to the detriment of this market.

Previously, the purchase of any complex equipment required a personal visit to a store or dealership, but today more and more transactions are carried out remotely, even when buying a car. Marketplaces and specialized digital platforms are becoming full-fledged participants in the automotive market.

"The automotive market is inevitably moving towards remote sales. This is not a Russian invention, but an established global trend. The question is not whether cars will be sold online, but how comfortable and safe such transactions will be for all participants. If judicial and financial risks start to grow faster than the market itself, this becomes a factor that can slow down the development of new convenient services and modern technologies," says Petr Shkumatov, head of the working group of the Popular Front for the Protection of Motorists' Rights, coordinator of the Blue Buckets social movement.

For the government, the development of e-commerce in the automotive segment is of strategic importance. Online sales allow you to expand the geography of the market, ensure the availability of cars for residents of remote regions and increase sales efficiency. However, the process is not without its difficulties.

"Legal" lawlessness

Some time ago, marketplaces were literally attacked by hordes of lawyers and pseudo-consumers, whose main goal was not to purchase goods, but to file a lawsuit against the seller. The massive purchase of inexpensive goods and the equally massive filing of lawsuits led to the fact that compensation payments were many times higher than the cost of the goods themselves. Sellers, and sometimes manufacturers, who were subjected to such attacks, were forced to close their businesses.

At the same time, the discussion around consumer rights abuse has long gone beyond marketplaces. Similar disputes are underway in the construction industry, the sale of household appliances, and even in the automotive business. Suppliers and manufacturers are talking about an increasing number of cases where consumer protection mechanisms are used primarily as a tool for financial gain. Human rights organizations, on the contrary, consider such estimates to be exaggerated and warn of the risk of weakening the protection of citizens.

"Consumer protection must remain an absolute priority. However, the right to protection should not become a tool for generating income. When mechanisms created to restore violated rights are used to obtain disproportionate compensation, the consequences go far beyond the scope of a specific legal dispute. Business risks are growing, the predictability of the market and the investment attractiveness of individual projects are decreasing," says Daria Shvandar, Associate Professor of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Logistics at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, PhD in Economics.

For suppliers and manufacturers, the risks lie in a mass attack by "serial consumers" whose goal is not to purchase goods for personal use, but to prepare a statement of claim and receive monetary compensation. There have been precedents in judicial practice when compensation payments were four to five times higher than the initial cost of the goods, and a court-imposed penalty of 1% of the cost of the goods for each day of delay in troubleshooting could make a consumer a lifelong "rentier".

"The government is currently investing tens of billions of rubles in new production facilities, jobs, technology localization and the development of modern sales channels. But the effectiveness of these investments directly depends on the stability of the legal environment. If the abuse of law begins to create risks for market participants that are disproportionate to the nature of the violations, not only individual business projects are in question, but also the effectiveness of government programs to support the industry as a whole," says Daria Schwandar.

The scale of the problem

According to industry associations, the problem already goes beyond individual judicial conflicts. In the automotive sector, cases appear where the amount of penalties is several times higher than the cost of the product itself, and in some regions the activities of so-called "serial consumers" are systematically involved in dozens and hundreds of similar processes. According to market participants, only one public organization in the Ulyanovsk region has participated in more than 200 lawsuits against sellers of various goods in recent years.

Against the background of multibillion-dollar public investments in the development of the automotive industry, a logical question arises: are conditions being created at the same time under which part of the funds allocated for the development of production will be spent on compensation, fines and legal costs?

According to information from open sources and received from automakers and car dealers in different regions of the country, for example, Saratov, Ulyanovsk and other regions, criminal cases have already been initiated and are being investigated against such "serial consumers" on the facts of their fraudulent actions related to the return of cars.

The government has invested tens of billions of rubles in the creation of a new automotive industry. The question of what factors can hinder the achievement of these goals is becoming no less important today than the question of the amount of subsidies allocated. If the abuse of rights slows down entire industries, then the state will have to look for a way out that will protect sellers and producers rather than consumers.