The creators of the rocket "Proton-M" are suing the Ministry of Defense
Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center filed a lawsuit in court to oblige the customer to pay 50 million for the development of a launch vehicle that will replace the Proton-M
There was a conflict between the developers of the Proton-M launch vehicle stuck at the start of the Baikonur cosmodrome and the Aerospace Defense Forces (WKO), which could not be resolved by the manufacturers and customers and went to court. The Moscow Arbitration Court is considering the claim of the Khrunichev State Space Research and Production Center (GKNPT) to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in the amount of more than 50 million rubles. According to the decision of the arbitration, the military was obliged to pay the full cost of work on the creation of a new Angara launch vehicle, but the Ministry of Defense appealed this decision.
The contract for the design of the Angara RKP was signed in 1993 year. The cost of the work was to be agreed upon after the conclusion of contracts with counterparties. The final issue price was determined by additional agreements No. 29 from 2006 of the year and No. 40 from 2010 of the year.
As a result, in 2006, an agreement was reached to pay for each stage of work on the creation of a launch vehicle. However, in 2010, at the final stage of the creation of the Angara, the designers requested additional 67 million rubles from the Ministry of Defense.
“The basis for this calculation was the economic indicators previously agreed with the customer, including on the invoice calculations,” the lawyers of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Center explained in the lawsuit.
The Ministry of Defense made its own calculation of work, and at all stages, and not only in terms of the increased costs in the 2010 year. The military came to the conclusion that the cost was too high, and unilaterally reduced the price - by 45 million rubles in terms of overhead costs and by 5 million rubles in terms of payment for the co-contractor’s work.
In the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center they tried to resolve the issue peacefully, finding that it was a kind of absurd mistake: the creators of "Angara" sent the military acts of the work done to the part of the contract price that was not received. However, the money from the ministry they have not been transferred. After that, the GKNPT was forced to appeal to the Arbitration Court.
In the process of reviewing the case in court, it became known what the Ministry of Defense had justified its decision not to pay money to the launch vehicle developers.
“The defendant gave proof of the protocols in which the new agreed prices were indicated,” Izvestia was told in the arbitration court. - However, in the column “proposed by the customer” the amount was not put down, but in the column “agreed” was the amount already reduced by the defendant.
In 2011, the judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court, Olga Likhacheva, considered such a justification for reducing the cost of the order unacceptable and ordered the Ministry of Defense to pay the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center 49,9 million debt and 200 thousand of court costs.
The Ministry of Defense appealed this decision twice. 16 April 2012 of the Year The 9th Arbitration Court of Appeal dismissed the complaint of the military. But after two weeks at the stage of cassation, the claims of the Ministry of Defense were satisfied.
“The court of first instance did not conduct a full and comprehensive investigation of the evidence presented by the defendant,” is indicated in the decision of the cassation instance.
We are talking about protocols with "inscribed and non-inscribed prices." The case was sent for a new consideration to the first instance with a demand to pay more attention to the evidence cited by the Ministry of Defense. The next meeting on the protracted dispute about 50 million is scheduled for July 31 2012.
In the information support group of the Aerospace Defense Forces, Izvestia was unable to promptly provide a comment on the court proceedings with the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.
Recall that the Angara launch vehicle, developed by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, should replace Proton-M in the coming years, which has received bad fame recently. The last incident with this launch vehicle occurred on 19 June 2012 of the year. "Proton-M" with the upper stage "Briz-M" and the Dutch communication satellite SES-5 was removed from the start due to a technical malfunction.
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