The Lawyers of ART DE LEX won RUB 4.5 million in court fees

Source: Pravo.ru

The beginning of the month marked another major compensation of court fees when the lawyers of ART DE LEX succeeded in getting a RUB 4,550,243.23 payment as part of the claim Transgidrostroy made against the construction company SU-111. The court’s approach to the parties’ arguments on the amount spent on court representation was thorough. The lawyers afterward commented on the current situation regarding the compensation of court fees as well as trends and challenges in this area.

NEW VICTORY OF LAWYERS

In June of this year, during proceedings against Construction Management, CJSC No. 111 (SU-111), Transgidrostroy managed to get a large amount of court fees. On 5 June 2015, the Ninth Arbitrazh Appeals Court (AAC), in case No. A40-53291/13, decided to recover RUB 4,550,243.23 court fees from the defendant as well as RUB 15,691.05 in court costs. Initially, Transgidrostroy, through its attorneys at ART DE LEX, demanded compensation for unpaid work, a penalty, and unjust enrichment (the amount totaled to RUB 80 million). In turn, Construction Management, CJSC No. 111 (SU-111), which is a subsidiary of the construction holding company Augur Estate, a significant portion of whose assets the group BIN Family-Shamaeva Gutserievs purchased, attempted recover from Transgidrostroya RUB 92.8 million as a penalty for delaying construction in the form of an unpaid advance and interest on borrowed funds.

The Moscow Arbitration Court, with Judge G. M. Larina presiding, heard the case for six months with five hearings. In the end, the court met both the initial and counterclaims: the court found grounds for recovering from SU-111 the debt owed for unpaid work in the amount of RUB 44 million and penalties, but it also granted the counterclaim to recover an unearned advance, reducing the penalty to RUB 4 million.

Neither party accepted the decision of the Court of First Instance. However, the Ninth AAC upheld the decision of Larina. The judges of the Arbitration Court of the Moscow District agreed with the decision. After that, Transgidrostroy appealed again to the Moscow Arbitration Court, with a claim to recover court fees from SU-111.

Transgidrostroy claimed RUB 4.5 million to be recovered from SU-111 for the attorneys’ fees it paid to the lawyers of ART DE LEX. On 2 February 2015, the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied the claim for the recovery of court costs in full. The court found that the Transgidrostroy side had documented all the declared expenses, all of which were related to the costs associated with legal representation.

Judge Larina also stated that the applicant had proven that Transgidrostroy actually had spent more than RUB 7 million on the proceedings. The court also agreed that the cost of ART DE LEX services was commensurate with the service costs of other law firms of the same rating level, using the criteria of fame, transparency, and quality of service. In proving the proportionality of the cost of services, the applicants relied primarily on data from a national ranking of law firms from “Pravo.Ru-300.”

The lawyers of SU-111 disagreed and appealed to the Ninth AAC, which proved to be useless. Judges Goncharova, Garmaeva, and Titova upheld the decision of the court of first instance.

As the lawyers of ART DE LEX explained, the company hopes that this judicial decision will contribute to the practice of collecting court fees, which began taking shape again after the abolition of the Supreme Arbitrazh Court of the Russian Federation.

After hearing the case regarding court cost compensation in the Appellate Court, the parties agreed that all of their existing disputes are resolved. In the agreement, the parties have confirmed the cost of the court fees. SU-111 has carried out the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court on a voluntary basis and refused to appeal the court’s decision.