A new interpretation of Clause 5 of Article 166 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is proposed. This approach is based on the qualification of the decision to consider a transaction null and void as a way of protecting civil rights, and on the doctrine of the refusal to protect the right as a court's reaction to the unfair conduct of parties to civil law relations. Using the formal legal method and methods of grammatical and systemic interpretation, the author concludes that the statement of invalidity, referred to in the text of Clause 5 of Article 166 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, is characterized solely as a statement of a transaction's nullity, but not of its voidability. At the same time, the court's disregard of such a statement is a form of refusal to protect the rights of the person who made such a statement because of his unfair behavior towards his counterpart (Clause 3, Article 10 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).
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