AGA Partners successfully represented three Cypriot agri-trading companies in a dispute with Swiss global trading company before the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (“ICAC”).
The dispute concerned the buyer’s wrongful refusal to accept the cargo supplied under three sale contracts. The Clients founded their claim on the Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (the “CISG”), seeking recovery of market price damages as well as additional storage and logistics costs.
AGA Partners initially succeeded to consolidate the dispute under three sale contracts into one arbitration proceedings, which allowed to minimize the Clients’ arbitration expenses.
Further, the buyer based his cargo rejection on the deficiency of quality inspection at the loading. The Arbitral Court supported our Clients’ position that the final quality was to be established on discharge, so that rejection of the cargo was premature and wrongful.
The buyer has also objected against the applicability of CISG. However, AGA Partners managed to convince the Arbitral Court that it is applicable and, consequently, the Clients are entitled to the compensation of damages claimed under the CISG.
This case has raised rather uncommon problems of applicability of CISG to international sale contracts when the parties conduct business and operate in different states. It may also have a landmark impact on the formation and amendment of international sale contracts according to the requirements of CISG.
The AGA Partners team was led by partners Iryna Moroz and Ivan Kasynyuk with support from senior associate Ievgen Boiarskyi and associate Viktoriia Tolochko.