The dispute with Leroy Merlin in the amount of more than 1.4 billion rubles

The lawyers of the Bureau defended the interests of the client in a dispute with Leroy Merlin in the amount of more than 1.4 billion rubles.

Our client is a construction company entered into a contract for the sale of future thing from Leroy Merlin, which has pledged to build Leroy Merlin an object of unfinished construction for the accommodation of hypermarket products for the DIY buyer's total area of 42 thousand square meters. Leroy Merlin carried out the transfer of advance payments and deposits in favor of our client for a total of 1.4 billion rubles, which the client built a building with a 70% degree of readiness. Despite this, Leroy Merlin terminated the contract unilaterally with reference to the violation of the construction deadlines and demanded the return of advance payments. Also, Leroy Merlin presented claims for bank guarantees of Sberbank of Russia, which provided for the return of advances under the contract of purchase and sale of the future thing. Our client pointed out that the advance was completely spent on the construction of the building and objectively cannot be returned. Leroy Merlin did not make any claims to the quality of the building. However, Leroy Merlin referred to the fact that the parties concluded a contract for the purchase and sale of a future item that was not transferred to the customer on time, which, under the terms of the contract, gives Leroy Merlin the right to demand a full refund of the advance. Our task was to prevent payments on bank guarantees from Sberbank of Russia and to transfer an object of unfinished construction in favor of Leroy Merlin to repay our client's obligations to return the advance.

We filed a lawsuit in which the court recognized the requirement to terminate the contract of sale of a future thing as illegal. The court concluded that the existing legal relationship between Leroy Merlin and our client is a legal relationship in the field of contract (Chapter 37 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) with elements of agency (Chapter 52 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). Based on the full development, the provided advances and deposits, as well as the absence of claims on the quality of the work performed, our client could not be charged with the obligation to return the provided financing. As a result, as part of the following lawsuit, a settlement agreement was concluded between the parties, according to which our client transferred an object of unfinished construction to Leroy Merlin, and Leroy Merlin refused claims against our client in the amount of more than 1.4 billion rubles.