News (#09 September 2016)

Cases

Luc Besson ordered to pay for film plagiarism

The Court of Appeal in Paris has ordered director Luc Besson to pay EUR 450,000 in compensation to John Carpenter, the American director. Luc Besson was caught using key scenes from Carpenter’s movie Escape from New York (1981) in the movie Lockout (2012) on a mass scale. This lawsuit between Besson and Carpenter lasted from 2015.

John Carpenter demanded recovery from Luc Besson of EUR 2.2 million but the court ordered Besson to pay out EUR 85,000 to the American. However, the French director’s lawyers did not agree with this decision, pointing out that the movie Escape from New York itself contains scenes from the western Rio Bravo and Mad Max. The Court of Appeal confirmed the decision of the primary court, increasing the amount of monetary compensation by more than five times.

 

Founder of Carlo Pazolini arrested in absentia in London

The High Court in London has arrested Ilya Reznik, founder of Carlo Pazolini, the Russian shoe chain in absentia for 18 months, because of non-payment of debts to Alfa-Bank. In April 2016 the High Court ordered Reznik in a matter of days to inform Alfa-Bank of all assets worth more than USD 10,000, which are in his full or partial ownership, as is stated in court records. Reznik did not provide such information. As a result, the court ruled to place him under arrest for 18 months for contempt of court. As follows from the court document, Reznik did not attend the meeting either personally or via an established video link.

Difficulties between the founder of the shoe chain and the bank are related to loans. In spring 2016, Alfa-Bank appealed to the Arbitration Court of Moscow with a claim of bankruptcy of JSC Firm Anta, the main borrower for the debts of the retailer. Alfa-Bank is also trying to recover debts totaling USD 11 million and EUR 8.4 million from Carlo Pazolini Trade Ltd., Carlo Pazolini Participation and Carlo Pazolini (Switzerland) S.A. In May Sberbank joined in the case of bankruptcy, and in summer a claim to the amount of RUB 1.49 billion was filed by UniCredit Bank.

 

Court orders Sonders Trading K/S Cо Ltdto pay Ukrainiangrain trader

The State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine (SFGCU) is demanding money through court proceedings from the Chinese companies Neslot Limited and Sonders Trading K/S Co, Limited.

According to the ruling issued by Pechersk District Court of Kyiv of 1 August 2016, the Central Investigation Department of the Prosecutor-General’s Office carried out pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings of 10 April 2014 on facts of embezzlement in especially large amounts and of abusive activities by SFGCU officials when using loan funds in the amount of USD 1.5 billion provided for implementation of cooperation program in the agribusiness industry between Ukraine and China.

The State Financial Inspection of Ukraine created a commission to check SFGCU’s financial and economic activities, based on the results of which, in particular, facts of non-fulfilment of agreements on grain delivery from the 2014 harvest were discovered. According to the ruling adopted by the Economic Court of Kiev, all of SFGCU’s nine law suits, which contained claims totaling USD 55.7 million against Sonders Trading K/S Co Limited to invalidate acts of offsetting were fully satisfied and acts of offset concluded between SFGCU and Sonders Trading K/S Co Limited were invalidated.

 

Oschadbank filed lawsuit against Russia

State-owned Oschadbank has filed a lawsuit in the amount of more than USD 1 billion against the Russian Federation for the loss of property during the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The total amount of the claim includes value of lost assets, value of business losses, as well as interests to be accrued before the Tribunal adopts its final decision and until actual receipt of reimbursement at a commercial rate is determined by the Tribunal.

Oschadbank begins a new important stage in procedural proceedings in its claims against the Russian Federation within the framework of a bilateral investment protection treaty, which is derived from the total destruction of its investments in the Crimea because of illegal occupation and de facto annexation of this territory by Russia.

According to the data from the bank and subject to its grounded proposal, the Tribunal has decided not to “split” the process and not to single out jurisdictional issues into separate proceedings: all matters related to jurisdiction, essentials of claims and damage assessment shall be heard in one judicial proceeding, which will greatly speed up consideration of the case.

If after submission of the claim by Oschadbank the Russian Federation continues to refuse to participate in the arbitration, the Tribunal has adopted a decision that the claim shall be considered under an accelerated time schedule until the final hearing, which is currently scheduled for the end of March 2017.

 

Court overturns penalties applied to Ukrnafta

The Kiev Administrative Court of Appeal has declared unlawful and revoked the order of the Ministry of Economy, by which the administration accrued penalties of UAH 90.452 million on Ukrnafta for late payment of dividends totaling UAH 632.3 million to the state budget for 2014.

When applying penalties the Ministry referred to paragraph 5 Part 5 Article11 of the On Management of State-owned Enterprises Act of Ukraine, which states that business entities, in the authorized capital of which there are corporate rights of the state, pay dividends to the state budget within a period not later than 1 July of the year following the reporting one.

The Court concluded that Ukrnafta is not subject to this provision of the Act, because in its authorized capital there is no share owned by the state. The decision on payment of dividends was adopted by the company at the general meeting of shareholders on 22 July 2015. As a result the payment should have been made by 3 October 2015.

On 2 October Ukrnafta completed full implementation of its obligations to pay dividends for 2014 to Naftogaz of Ukraine by transferring UAH 632.3 million to the state budget, as provided for by the decision of the meeting of shareholders. Accordingly, the court concluded that dividends for 2014 were paid by Ukrnafta in a timely manner, so there are no grounds for applying penalties.

 

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