In December 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation demanded payment of a fine from JSC “Scientific Research Institute “Mashtab” (a St. Petersburg branch of the Rostec Group of Companies), but the research institute refused to pay. The Moscow Commercial (‘Arbitration’) Court upheld the recovery of only 5 million rubles out of 138.1 million that the Ministry of Industry and Trade had demanded.
Background: The Ministry of Industry and Trade signed three agreements with the Scientific Research Institute in 2016 to subsidize part of the costs of creating a scientific and technical reserve for the development of basic technologies for the production of electronic components and radio-electronic equipment. According to the agreements, if the planned figures were less than 90% and were not achieved within one calendar year from the project’s date of completion, then penalties were to be applied to the research institute.
Anna Zabrotskaya, a Partner and Head of the Dispute Resolution Practice at Nordic Star, considers the decision in the dispute between the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Scientific Research Institute to be atypical for practice. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has already filed an appeal and Anna assesses the likelihood of the Ministry being successful as quite high.
Read the full article (in Russian)