July 16 Main results of the day

Victory in the Supreme Court: The Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” defended the Principal’s apartment on Tsvetnoy Boulevard from the lawsuit of the Moscow City Property Department.

Today, De jure lawyers have won a convincing victory in the Supreme Court, retaining the apartment for the Principal, which the three previous instances had claimed in favor of the City Property Department.

As part of a multi-year trial, the city authorities tried to challenge the legality of transactions with an apartment in the center of Moscow, which became the property of the Principal in 2017. The basis of the claim was the statement that the initial alienation of the property in 2012 was illegal. Then the ownerless apartment suddenly had a legitimate heiress of the sixth stage (based on a subsequently overturned court decision), who immediately sold it, and later the apartment was sold twice more.

The key arguments used by the lawyers of the Bureau of Lawyers “De jure”:

— A procedural error, since the courts violated the positions of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court by mixing two independent methods of protection: claiming property and challenging transactions,

— Lack of legal grounds, since there was no contractual relationship between the State Property Department and the Principal,

— Exhaustive grounds for refusal, since the case did not require a new consideration.

As a result, the Supreme Court fully agreed with the arguments of the “De jure” team represented by Nikita Filippov, Head of the Bureau, and Rashid Gitinov, Head of the practice of disputes with government agencies, and without sending the case for a new hearing, it itself issued a decision to reject the claim of the City Property Department.

The Arbitration Court of the Volga District overturned the rulings of lower courts on the recovery of over 18 million rubles from the Principal of the Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” for damages caused by the fire.

The Principal is Russia’s largest manufacturer of powder materials used in industry. After a fire in his warehouse, one of the buyers blamed the Bureau’s Principal for the incident, citing violations of production technology and poor quality of products. The court of first instance and the appellate court agreed with the Plaintiff’s arguments, despite the fact that there was no obvious cause-and-effect relationship, since the logistics and storage were carried out by the Plaintiff, not the Defendant. The Court of Cassation agreed with the arguments of the lawyers of the Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” and canceled the judicial acts issued in the case, sending the case for a new hearing to the court of first instance.

The Principal’s interests were represented by Alexander Uchaykin, senior lawyer of the economic dispute resolution practice of the Bureau of Lawyers “De jure”.

The Arbitration Court of the Moscow District upheld the judicial decisions of the lower courts on the dismissal of the claim of the Russian company against the Principal of the Bureau of Lawyers “De Jure” on the recovery of a penalty for late delivery of goods, damages and legal costs in the total amount of 32 million rubles and on the satisfaction of a counterclaim in the amount of over 11 million rubles, the procedure for calculating the penalty for the future period (we did not dispute this).

The Principal is an importer of production equipment and, within the framework of the contract concluded with the Plaintiff, has delivered goods of proper quality. However, the buyer considered that the supplier had violated its obligations and, despite the absence of such a right in the contract, accepted the goods for safekeeping, and evaded signing transfer documents for more than two months and demanded payment of a penalty for the period of alleged delay. The Bureau’s Principal did not agree with the Plaintiff’s position, considered such behavior to be unfair and filed a counterclaim for the recovery of the remaining payment for the goods and penalties in accordance with the contract. When considering the cassation appeal, the court agreed with the arguments of the Bureau’s lawyers and decided to leave unchanged the decision of the court of first instance and the decision of the court of appeal regarding the denial of the initial claim, and also slightly adjusted the operative part on the satisfaction of the counterclaim, which, in fact, the Principal did not dispute.

The result: a complete victory in three instances. The Principal’s interests were represented by Alexander Uchaykin, senior lawyer of the economic dispute resolution practice of the Bureau of Lawyers “De jure”.

Continuation of the Bureau’s unusual line of defense

The Bureau’s practice is focused on protecting the interests of clients in disputes against state-owned companies or government agencies. But today, the Bureau’s lawyers once again acted as defenders of the rights and interests of the State Unitary Enterprise (now JSC) in a dispute with the Federal Antimonopoly Service for the city of Moscow regarding the invalidation of the decision to refuse to include a supplier in the register of unscrupulous suppliers.

Upholding the decisions of the lower courts, the Arbitration Court of the Moscow District agreed with our arguments regarding:

— Incorrect interpretation of Russian legislation by opponents;

— Greater force of special provisions of the Law on the contract system in relation to the provisions of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation;

— the presence in the contract of a condition on the general initial and final terms of delivery of the goods and the right of the customer to specify, at his own discretion, the quantity and term of delivery of the goods within the framework of a specific application;

— misinterpretation by the supplier of the possibility to deliver the goods no later than the general deadline for delivery under the contract by refusing to deliver the goods within the time limits specified by the customer in the applications.

As a result of the dispute, the courts granted the State Unitary Enterprise’s application to invalidate the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service for Moscow and to oblige the Federal Antimonopoly Service to include information about the supplier in the register of unscrupulous suppliers.

The Principal’s interests were represented by Rashid Gitinov, Head of the practice of resolving disputes with government agencies, and Yakov Prysyazhnyuk, Head of the practice of resolving economic disputes.

P.S.: The supplier is already included in the RNP.

The Tenth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region, which refused to recover from the Bureau’s Principal a debt under a service agreement in the amount of more than 16 million rubles, taking into account penalties for 3 years.

Leaving the judicial act of the court of first instance unchanged, the court of appeal, taking into account the arguments of the response to the complaint, preceded from the following:

— The Plaintiff does not have primary documentation for the provision of services, and the reconciliation report is not such a document.;

— The presented primary documentation is falsified, which is confirmed by the results of the forensic examination. The materials on the falsification have been transferred to law enforcement agencies;

— The conclusion of an agreement in itself, in the absence of evidence of its execution, is not a basis for debt collection, even if the conclusion of the agreement itself was not denied by the Principal of the Bureau;

— The fact of fulfillment of obligations cannot be confirmed by witness testimony, even of former managers of the Bureau’s Principal, in the absence of primary documentation.

The Principal’s interests were represented by Ilsur Zakirov, senior lawyer of the practice of disputes with government agencies.