The municipal enterprise ordered our client to reevaluate groundwater reserves. The work was divided into four stages. After our client began providing services in the first stage, the municipal enterprise’s subsoil use license was revoked due to its own fault, making further work impossible, and the contract was terminated. Our client demanded payment for losses in the amount of the work on the first stage, but the municipal enterprise refused to pay anything. For the purpose of peaceful settlement, our client sent a proposal to pay half the cost of work on the first stage, attaching a draft act of work performed and an invoice for half the cost of services. The customer evaded responding and making payment, so we turned to the Moscow Region Arbitration Court with a claim for the full cost of work on the first stage. In court, the defendant confirmed its refusal to pay for the work, citing the fact that it did not sign the acceptance documents, the work was not completed, and the defendant had no interest in their completion.
By the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region dated July 09, 2021 in case A41-25630/2021, the claim was satisfied in full, since the impossibility of completing the work was related to the fault of the customer, who is obliged to refund the incurred losses. The municipal enterprise filed an appeal, which changed its position in the case – agreeing with the legal obligation to compensate losses, the defendant insisted the amount of these losses should be equal to half the cost of work on the first stage, as suggested by our client as a compromise at the pre-trial stage. In the decision of October 10, 2021, the tenth arbitration court rejected this argument and left the decision in force, pointing to the inconsistency of the defendant’s behavior, which at the stage of the trial can no longer insist on the settlement of the dispute on those conditions that were offered at the pre-trial stage as a compromise and from which the defendant would refuse then.
