Claims worth over USD 895,000 raised against our client were dismissed

The case involved a dispute with a counterparty under a contract for services which was governed by German law. The claimant submitted a claim against the client to recover debt for international telecommunication services provided in an amount exceeding USD 895,000. The Claimant’s claims were based on two agreements. Of these, one is governed by Russian law and contains a jurisdiction clause that all disputes should be submitted for consideration to the State Commercial (‘Arbitration’) Court for the city of Moscow. The second agreement is governed by German law and, in our client's opinion, contains an ad hoc arbitration clause, which does not allow a conclusion to be made that the Parties had agreed that the International Court of Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) under the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation will be the arbitration institute to consider contractual disputes. Owing to the well-grounded position developed by our specialists the claimant reduced the amount of its claims to USD 648,000 to the extent based on the agreement with a jurisdiction clause, agreeing that this part of the dispute was outside of the competence of the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Russian Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The client's position in essence was based on the fact that the claimant had missed the limitation period and that there were no grounds to reinstate (interrupt or suspend) the limitation period pursuant to the applicable provisions of the German Civil Code. The panel of the tribunal concluded that it had the competence to consider the part of the dispute asserted by the claimant; however, the panel agreed with our client’s arguments that the limitation period had been missed, and based on this fact the claims were dismissed. The project is interesting in terms of learning aspects of German legislation touched upon in the dispute.
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