As reported by the Business Petersburg edition in the material by Lev Godovannik, "UEC intends to punish the largest diesel manufacturer in St. Petersburg in court," JSC United Engine Corporation (UEC) is trying to punish the largest diesel manufacturer in St. Petersburg, PJSC Zvezda, for supplying equipment for the sixth frigate of project 22350. The Zvezda plant has delayed the delivery of equipment for a gas turbine unit manufactured by Rybinsk PJSC ODK-Saturn for the frigate Admiral Chichagov, which is being built at the St. Petersburg Northern Shipyard. Before the delay, the frigate was going to be transferred to the fleet in 2025. Zvezda is the only company in the St. Petersburg agglomeration to which ODK-Saturn has made public claims in recent years.
Assembly at PJSC Zvezda of the head set of RO55 gearboxes for the main power plant of the Admiral Golovko frigate (factory number 923) of project 22350. Saint Petersburg, 2019 (c) PJSC Zvezda
At what point is the delay considered
JSC United Engine Corporation (UEC, part of Rostec State Corporation) has contracts with St. Petersburg-based PJSC Shipbuilding Plant Severnaya Verf for the supply of 12 M55R diesel-gas turbine units for six frigates of Project 22350. The direct contractor of the contract, PJSC ODK-Saturn (the "daughter" of ODK, located in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl region), in December 2020 signed an agreement with St. Petersburg Zvezda on the supply of gearboxes and components for the main diesel-gas turbine unit M55R, which is to be installed on the sixth frigate of project 22350 Admiral Chichagov. The cost of the contract amounted to 602 million rubles.
Zvezda delayed the delivery, which it did not even try to dispute. The subject of the dispute in the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region was the duration of the delay, which, according to the terms of the agreement, began after 19 months from the date of advance payment. ODK-Saturn proposed to consider it from the moment of payment of the first advance payment, that is, from September 26, 2022, Zvezda insisted on the moment of payment of the fourth advance payment, after which it transferred the equipment to ODK-Saturn. In this case, the calculation of the delay begins on May 29, 2023.
Judge Egor Shpachev agreed with Zvezda's position. "All four payments made before the transfer of the goods to the buyer are different stages of the advance payment. With this in mind, the court agrees with the defendant's arguments that the delivery period should be calculated from the date of the fourth advance payment..." he wrote in the reasoning part of the decision issued at the end of October 2023. ODK-Saturn recovered 17.5 million rubles from Zvezda instead of 28.6 million, it was not satisfied with this decision, so the dispute will continue in the court of appeal the other day.
An exclusive subject for claims
The Northern Shipyard is fulfilling contracts for the construction of eight 1st-rank multipurpose frigates with guided missile weapons of the far-sea and ocean zone of Project 22350. The lead Admiral Gorshkov was transferred to the Northern Fleet in 2018. It became the first frigate of the 22350 project, equipped with M55R gas turbine units manufactured by ODK-Saturn. Previously, power plants for this project were supplied from Ukraine [error - in fact, only the third Admiral Golovko frigate received the first M55R gas turbine units manufactured by ODK-Saturn. - bmpd].
The second ship of the Admiral Kasatonov project was transferred to the Russian Navy in July 2020, the third - Admiral Golovko - at the end of December 2023. Five more ships - Admiral Isakov, Admiral Amelko, Admiral Chichagov, Admiral Yumashev and Admiral Spiridonov - are at the Northern Shipyard in different stages of construction. In mid-August 2022, the then general director of the Northern Shipyard, Igor Orlov, told TASS that the Admiral Chichagov ship would be transferred to the fleet in 2025.
At the Northern Shipyard and at ODK-Saturn, by the time of publication, the question of a possible shift in the delivery date of Admiral Chichagov due to the delay allowed by Zvezda had not been answered.
Since the end of 2019, five UEC-Saturn lawsuits have been registered on the Electronic Justice portal against companies from St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region - and all of them against the St. Petersburg Zvezda.
In October 2020, ODK-Saturn collected 5 million rubles from her for the delay in the development and testing of gearboxes for the Zubr and Murena hovercraft. In December 2021, ODK-Saturn already collected 53.2 million rubles from Zvezda for the delay in manufacturing, testing and delivery of a prototype gearbox complex for corvettes of project 20380, the first of which, Mercury, began factory tests in December 2022. In August 2021, UEC-Saturn recovered 1.4 million rubles from Zvezda for losses incurred due to the need to perform additional work on the reconditioning of gearboxes for M55R gas turbine units. And last August, he won another lawsuit for 34.6 million rubles, but the case was heard behind closed doors, and therefore the details are not public.
Zvezda did not respond to the editorial request at the time of publication.
"A vicious practice, in my opinion..."
Marina Karaseva, General Director of one of the largest suppliers of diesel power plants for Gazprom, St. Petersburg-based Dieselzipservice LLC, believes that Zvezda's position in the dispute with ODK-Saturn is correct.
"In my opinion, the vicious practice of many government customers today is to sign a contract based on the results of the auction and, relying on the preferential right, propose their own form of contract, prescribe there the right to demand the start of work even before the advance payment begins. This allows the customer to save money by extending the time of their transfer, earn on bank interest, and subsequently also collect penalties for the entire period of the contract from the moment of its signing. It is very pleasant that Zvezda proved to the court the inadmissibility of such an attitude towards contractors," says the head of Dieselzipservice.
Alexander Arbuzov, a partner in the legal practice of the Althaus consulting company, believes that ODK-Saturn will not be able to change the court decision in its favor in the court of appeal.
"Article 431st of the Civil Code clearly defines: when interpreting the terms of a contract, the court takes into account the literal meaning of the words and expressions contained therein. If the term of the work is linked by the contract to the payment of the advance provided by the stages, then it is logical to assume that the advance should be considered paid at the moment when the contractor received the last ruble due to him on account of the advance. Accordingly, the delay should be calculated taking into account the moment when the customer fully fulfills the obligation to advance, and not part of it," the expert says.
The dossier:
PJSC Zvezda is a developer and manufacturer of diesel power plants for the needs of shipbuilding, railway transport and small-scale energy. The main customer is the Russian Navy. The company's revenue for the three quarters of 2023 amounted, according to SPARK, to about 2.8 billion rubles. After 2014, Zvezda's order book grew almost 10 times - this happened due to international sanctions that deprived the Russian Navy of components from Europe. According to SPARK data updated for the first quarter of 2019 (there are no more recent data), 24.99% of the shares of PJSC Zvezda belong to Ural Diesel Engine Plant LLC and Accent LLC, 21.93% belong to Dealing LLC, the remaining 19.54% belong to Euroinvest LLC. All companies are registered in the Sverdlovsk region, but only the Ural Diesel Engine Plant is part of the Sinara group of billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky.