The equipment was brought to court – Newspaper Kommersant No. 185 (7386) dated 06.10.

A Russian military sting operation in Ukraine that began in February disrupted Ozon’s long-standing partnership with Lithuanian warehouse equipment manufacturer Equinox Europe. The marketplace claims that the counterparty notified of a force majeure that does not allow deliveries. The manufacturer is trying to recover funds from the online retailer through the courts for already delivered products.

As Kommersant found in the file of arbitration cases, Equinox Rus LLC, the Russian subsidiary of the Lithuanian Equinox Europe, working in the field of optimizing logistics processes, filed two lawsuits with the Moscow Arbitration Court against Ozon in early October. The marketplace confirmed to Kommersant information about the lawsuit in the amount of 116 million rubles. According to the filing cabinet, the amount of the second claim is 29.5 million rubles. The general director of Equinox Rus, Vladimir Penzev, told Kommersant that the company intends to file two more claims with the court. He estimated the total amount for all four claims at €12 million (about 715 million rubles at the current exchange rate of the Central Bank).

Equinox Europe has been supplying equipment to Ozon fulfillment centers in many regions of the country for more than a decade. According to Mr. Penzev, after the start of the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, Ozon terminated the contracts with the contractor for the supply of automated equipment ready for shipment. The marketplace has a different version: they say that in late February – early March they received several letters from the counterparty about the suspension of supplies due to force majeure caused by the worsening geopolitical situation. Kommersant has a copy of one of these letters, sent on February 28 by representatives of Equinox Rus and Equinox Europe to Ozon Povolzhye. It says about the impossibility to organize the transportation of equipment from the warehouse from Lithuania.

In 2022, the next deliveries of equipment were planned, as well as services for its installation and commissioning, which are performed by Equinox Europe employees from Lithuania, according to Ozon. But since the end of February, Equinox Rus stopped supplying the equipment stipulated by the contract, so Ozon, after three months of negotiations, decided to terminate the contract with the contractor. According to Ozon, now the equipment for which the advance was made is in warehouses in Lithuania.

In turn, Vladimir Penzev says that Ozon did not pay the contractor for the supplied and launched equipment, its maintenance, and also for the delivery of spare parts. In particular, we are talking about equipment for the Ozon warehouse in Novaya Riga in the Moscow region, where a fire broke out in August, the top manager adds. In turn, Ozon notes that the counterparty did not complete the work provided for by the contracts on setting up and starting up the equipment, since all the technical personnel were taken out by the company from Russia.

Oleg Khmelevsky, a lawyer at the A1 Bar Association, admits that Equinox Rus’s claims can be recognized as justified if the contract establishes a staged payment: part for the supply of equipment, and the other part after its installation. At the same time, the expert believes that Ozon can accrue a penalty and recover damages from the contractor for violating the terms of equipment installation, for example, through a counterclaim. If all the procedural aspects are observed when filing a claim, the court cannot refuse to accept it, says Oleg Khmelevsky.

In general, today the initiative to terminate the execution of contracts in most cases comes from foreign contractors, says Kirill Nikitin, head of the Vegas Lex law firm. At the same time, according to him, recently there has been a trend towards a decrease in the level of legal protection of foreign companies, primarily from “unfriendly” countries. However, the expert concludes, it is still difficult to say how absolute this reduction will be.

Alina Savitskaya