Lawyers of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” helped the executor of the state contract to protect his rights

The client of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De Jure” – LLC“ V ”- won a state contract for the construction of a temporary detention facility by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Kaliningrad Region. However, before the expiration of the deadline, the Customer terminated the state contract, having referred to the Contractor’s failure to meet the deadlines for the work, and therefore, according to the Customer’s application, the FAS of Russia in Moscow even included LLC “V” in the register of unfair contractors.  Having not agreed with this, LLC “B” appealed to the court.

During the consideration of the case by the Arbitration Court of the first instance, at the request of lawyers of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De Jure” a judicial construction and technical examination was appointed, the results of which confirmed the arguments of the Contractor.  But these results, as well as arguments on the claim, were not taken into account by the court; the claim was denied.

The thirteenth arbitration court of appeal reversed the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Kaliningrad Region. In particular, the court stated that the construction permit was received by the Customer only 5 months after the conclusion of the state contract, while it should have been done before the decision to conduct public procurement. Another reason for the violation of work deadlines was contradictions in the design and estimate documentation. The Contractor repeatedly notified the Customer about them, informed that some types of work in the documentation required adjustments, and for some types of work there was no documentation at all. However, all requests were left unanswered.  Under such circumstances, the failure to meet the deadlines, as the court recognized, occurred due to the fault of the Customer.

The court decision noted that the customer’s fault in the failure to meet the deadlines was confirmed by the fact that after the termination of the state contract, additional government procurements were carried out precisely for those types of work for which there was no design and estimate documentation.  Because of this, the Client of “Bureau of Lawyers “De Jure” was not able to perform related work on the contract.

The court’s decision is of particular importance for the Bank that issued the guarantee to ensure the fulfillment of the Contractor’s obligations under the state contract. His interests in this case were also represented by employees of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De Jure”. Now the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Kaliningrad region has no grounds to apply to the court with a claim against a credit institution for recovery under a Bank guarantee, since the court process found that the contractor was not guilty.

Head of the MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” N.V.Filippov, trainee lawyers M.V.Ovchinnikova and R.K.Gitinov took part in forming of the legal position on the case, preparing the statement of claim and appeal.

The interests of LLC “V…” in the courts of the first and appeal instances were represented by trainee lawyers M.V.Ovchinnikov and R.K.Gitinov.