The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeals has reversed the decision of the court of first instance on the claim of CJSC STIM against OJSC TransContainer. At issue is one of the protracted disputes on allegedly unreasonably recovered monetary funds (around 300,000 roubles) for services rendered under a freight forwarding agreement.

As Viktor Markov, OJSC TransContainer’s Director for Legal Issues, reported, the essence of the dispute is that over the first few months of its operations (starting in July 2006), TransContainer, for technical reasons, rendered services to its clients without drawing up written orders. “CJSC STIM took advantage of this situation by claiming that the services had been rendered without the appropriate approval by CJSC STIM or that they had not been rendered at all. However, TransContainer provided exhaustive proof during the court proceedings both of the fact that the services were rendered and of CJSC STIM’s actions clearly evidencing its request for the services to be rendered,” Viktor Markov said.

We first reported on this dispute in April 2007. TransContainer was victorious at the court of first instance, after which appeals and cassation appeals were filed by CJSC STIM. “As a result the case was returned to the court of first instance which took a decision in CJSC STIM’s favour. And now the court of appeals has reversed that decision,” Viktor Markov said.

He further stated that the court of cassation, which had returned the case to the court of first instance, had specified the need to check whether the services were rendered and, thus, the possibility of debiting funds from a personal account opened specially for settlements under the agreement between OJSC TransContainer and CJSC STIM.

Having checked the facts, the court issued a decision in favour of OJSC TransContainer.

Viktor Markov also recalled that this was the third case on CJSC STIM’s claim against OJSC TransContainer.

“The disputes are absolutely identical and pertain to different months of our company’s operation – July, August and September 2006. We won one of the disputes – the largest – in all three instances, the second is being considered by the court of first instance,” Viktor Markov noted.