The Litigation team at EPAM defended a major chemical company in a dispute with a leading Russian private transport group over the recovery of damages exceeding RUB 400m in the court of first instance and the appellate court.

In 2013, the client and the transport group entered into a forward contract, for which purpose the opponent built a hazardous cargo transfer point in 2018. From 2018-2020, the client sent 9 cargo unloading orders to the counterparty pursuant to the contract, and in summer of 2020, the client refused to extend it.

The counterparty filed a claim for the recovery of lost profits seeking over RUR 400m in damages, resulting from the construction and operation of the transfer point and claiming the client’s improper performance of the contract’s provisions on the minimum daily volume of hazardous cargo.

Attorneys of the Firm developed a multi-stage defense strategy proving lack of both the required claimant’s capacities to process the claimed cargo volumes, and the agreed provision on the minimum daily volume of cargo transfer. As a result, the first instance court fully dismissed the claims.

In the appellate court, the Firm also managed to prove its case on the validity of the dismissal of all the claimant’s procedural petitions, which reaffirmed the validity of the first instance court.

The team representing the client included Partner and co-head of Litigation Practice Valery Eremenko, Counsel Julia Bobrova, Associate Ksenia Tomilina and Junior Associate Daniil Mogilevsky.