RSHB-Insurance wants to recover 0.5 billion rubles from pork producer Idavang
RSHB-Insurance wants to recover 0.5 billion rubles from the pork producer Idavang, controlled by the Danish holding of the same name. The company previously received this amount as compensation for an outbreak of African swine fever, due to which it lost more than 36 thousand heads of cattle four years ago. Lawyers believe that the insurer has a chance to return the funds paid, since violations of veterinary standards by the producer were revealed, leading to the death of the pigs.
As Kommersant discovered in the arbitration case file, RSHB-Insurance is collecting 539 million rubles from Idavang LLC (part of the agro-industrial group of the same name) through the Arbitration Court of the Pskov Region. The insurer paid this amount to the manufacturer in 2021, after more than 36 thousand heads died at the company's sites due to an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF). However, now RSHB-Insurance believes that Idavang "unjustifiably enriched itself" due to insurance payments.
In the summer of 2023, the insurer had already tried to recover 372 million rubles from the Pskov Region administration in a dispute with Idavang. According to the case materials, the pigs were seized by the local government and disposed of in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Thus, according to Article 19 of the Federal Law "On Veterinary Medicine", Idavang had the right to compensation from the Russian budget. This claim was rejected in December 2023, and the insurance company filed an appeal. RSHB-Insurance, Idavang, and the Pskov Region administration did not respond to Kommersant's request.
Idavang Group is part of the Danish holding Idavang A/S and is engaged in pig breeding. According to SPARK, in 2023, the group's revenue exceeded RUB 2.22 billion, net profit - RUB 1.34 billion. In 2018, the group owned a pig complex in the Leningrad Region with a capacity of 20 thousand tons of pork per year and in Pskov with a capacity of 10 thousand tons.
The key difficulty for agricultural enterprises in working with insurance companies is confirming the reasons and size of the insured event, says Konstantin Korneev, director of the agricultural consulting company Rincon Management. For example, the insurer may refuse to pay if it turns out that the enterprise did not comply with biosecurity measures.
According to market participants, from January to early September 2024, about 265 thousand pigs were destroyed in Russia, which is twice as much year-on-year. However, this is still less than five years ago, since now industry enterprises are investing in safety, insists the head of the National Meat Association Sergei Yushin. According to Rosselkhoznadzor, since the beginning of 2024, 17 outbreaks of ASF have been recorded throughout Russia.
According to the National Union of Agricultural Insurance (NUA), for January-August 2024, the average rate for pig farming insurance with state support amounted to 1.64% of the insured amount, decreasing by 0.04 percentage points compared to 2023. Nevertheless, NSA President Kornei Bizhdov notes that pig farming insurance rates are higher than in other segments of livestock farming. Thus, according to the NSA, in poultry farming from 2020 to 2024, they were in the range of 0.77-0.79%, in cattle production - 0.49-0.54%.
Maria Krasnova, a partner at the KIAP law firm, notes that there was previously a practice of positive decisions and recovery from the regional government of damages incurred due to ASF outbreaks in favor of the owner or insurer, but in 2023 such cases became less common. Arbitration manager Tatyana Pugacheva points out that in the case of RSHB-Insurance against the Pskov Region, Idavang was found to have violated veterinary legislation, in the presence of which the payment of insurance compensation should be denied. This, in her opinion, makes the chances of recovering unjust enrichment from the company quite high.
