Russia (bbabo.net), - The Board of the Fifteenth Court of Appeal in Rostov, chaired by Judge Oksana Eremina, is considering a difficult dispute between Bryansk businessman Vladimir Starodubts and BDA Capital LLC, which supplied him with winter rye seeds. We are talking not only about impressive sums of money - the lawsuit put forward is many times more than the cost of seeds, but also about reputational losses.

So, according to the agreement, in 2020 the company supplied Vladimir Starodubets with hybrid seeds of the German company KVS worth more than 25 million rubles, of which seeds of the KVS Eterno hybrid worth more than 12 million. Together with the goods, the buyer received a certificate of conformity confirming the proper quality of the seeds.

An individual entrepreneur, on his own initiative, re-checked the quality of the goods - specialists from the Bryansk Rosselkhoztsentr indicated that the germination of seeds was 89%. Starodubets carried out sowing work, but the results did not please him. Then he convened a whole commission to examine the fields where the rye of the KVS Eterno hybrid was sown. Representatives of the supplier and manufacturer were also present during the examination and agreed with the commission's conclusions. And these conclusions as a whole can be described in one phrase - the seeds sprout poorly. But for what reason? Vladimir Starodubets, despite the twice confirmed quality of the seeds, decided to prove that the reason for the unsuccessful sowing is still in them. At his own expense, he ordered a pre-trial expert opinion.

According to the law "On seed production", the only document confirming the quality of seeds is a certificate. Starodubets demanded in court from the supplier damages for 101 million rubles - eight times the cost of seeds that did not sprout.

BDA Capital has been operating since 2004 and has representatives in 20 regions of the country. The largest branch is located in Krasnodar, the center of the agricultural region, where the company's products are in constant demand among farmers. The company is the official distributor of major seed producers. And in this case, they are confident in the company, the seeds were supplied with high quality.

The specialists of the grain department of KVS RUS, the largest German producer of corn seeds and various grain crops, share the same opinion. Seeds of winter rye are grown in the Lipetsk region under the control of KVS agronomists, seed material is processed at a modern plant owned by the Soufflet company.

We are talking not only about impressive sums of money - the lawsuit put forward is many times more than the cost of seeds, but also about reputational losses

The Bryansk entrepreneur was counter-claimed to recover more than 15 million rubles, including the debt under the supply agreement for seeds, the cost of the loan and interest on its use. In November last year, the judge of the Arbitration Court of the Krasnodar Territory, Elena Koreyvo, swiftly satisfied the claim of Starodubets, but BDA Capital refused to satisfy the counterclaim. The question arises why the defendant's evidence confirming the quality of the seeds turned out to be less weighty? The lawyers did not see this in the motivation of the judicial act issued by Koreivo.

In order to prove the inadequate quality of the seed, the plai.jpg ordered a pre-trial expert opinion and provided the specialists with a seed sample for examination, claiming that it was taken from the batch supplied by the company. But the sample was taken by the agronomist of the plai.jpg, without the participation of representatives of the supplier and manufacturer - they were not invited. The specialist of the state seed inspection was also absent. Isn't it strange?

Experts say that there may be several reasons for poor germination. For example, violation of the rules for sowing or seed dressing. In the act of surveying the fields, poor seedlings were recorded, but not their causes. The trial court reached perhaps hasty conclusions. There are questions about the amount that an entrepreneur from the Bryansk region decided to recover from the company. The court considered proven the amount of "expenses for preparing and conducting the sowing campaign of the disputed batch of seeds" and the amount of lost profits, but the lawyers are sure that they have not been proven by the plai.jpg and cannot be recovered together.

Farming is a risky business. To recognize your own miscalculations as the cause of your own failures, you need objectivity, it is much easier to write off everything on a business partner. It remains to be hoped that the Fifteenth Arbitration Court of Appeal will show objectivity by considering all the nuances of this difficult case.

Comment

Yuriy Pustovit, Managing Partner of Yug Law Office:- The plai.jpg accepts the seeds from the defendant without comment, together with a quality certificate issued by the Federal State Budgetary Institution Rosselkhozcenter in the Lipetsk Region, then, on his own initiative, orders a check of their quality and a test report from the Federal State Budgetary Institution Rosselkhozcenter in the Bryansk Region, which confirms that everything is with the seeds in order. The Court of First Instance ignores this. He thinks more convincing is the pre-trial examination of seeds, commissioned by the plai.jpg and paid for by him, conducted by the Bryansk Agrarian University, on the video recording of which the voice-over says: "As he says, so we will do ..."

The supply contract gives the plai.jpg the right to file claims for quality within 15 days after the transfer of the seeds. The plai.jpg filed a claim against the defendant much later. The court of first instance recovered both the costs of sowing and lost profits. It's the same as if a furniture company, having made furniture from the supplied boards, sold it and made a profit, then charged the supplier of the boards with the costs of processing them.

The supply agreement limits the company's liability to the plai.jpg to the cost of a low-quality batch of seeds - 12 million rubles. However, the court recovers 101 million rubles, ignoring the limitation of liability.

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