The agency plans to recover more than 500 million rubles for non-compliance with the conditions for the development and production of microchips for satellites
The Kommersant newspaper found in the file of arbitration cases that on June 30, the Ministry of Industry and Trade filed a lawsuit for 512 million rubles against the Russian microelectronics design center of JSC SPC Elvis (it develops ARM processors of the Skif line). The definition says that the plaintiff intends to recover funds under the state contract dated November 29, 2016.
According to the public procurement website, it was then that the Ministry of Industry and Trade signed a contract with Elvis for the development and development of serial production of radiation-resistant microcircuits for the creation of onboard space complexes, the tender amount was 550 million rubles. The claim of the Ministry of Industry and Trade was also published there, from which it follows that the work had to be completed before June 30, 2019. By this date, the contractor had to finish testing samples of chips.
Sources say that meeting the full amount of claims will seriously hit the company, whose annual revenue in 2021 amounted to 1 billion rubles.
Anastasia Taradankina, partner of the Delcredere Bar Association, notes that the supply of microchip elements could have been affected by the sanctions of 2014, but they were not unforeseen at the conclusion of the contract in 2016, so they cannot be attributed to force majeure. It will be "problematic for Elvis to refer to the current restrictions," given the term of the contract, adds Oleg Moskvitin, partner of Muranov, Chernyakov and Partners.
The interlocutor of Kommersant, who is close to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, explains that the appeal to the court was forced, otherwise the supervisory authorities may have questions to the officials themselves.
He adds that the situation with the receipt of funds by design centers through the mechanism of subsidizing development work "is becoming contradictory." For them, this is the main source of income. As a rule, the project involves both the preparation of documentation and the production of a prototype product and even commercial batches:
