Kirill Katkov commented to Mashnews on the dispute between IT company BeringPoint and Segezha Group over a mistake in digital transformation work
The Moscow Commercial Court has ordered IT company BeringPoint, which carried out work to unify Segezha Group’s business processes on the basis of a unified SAP S/4HANA platform, to pay RUB 430 m. to the customer.
Initially, the lawsuit was initiated by BeringPoint, which demanded to recover RUB 834 m. from the customer, of which RUB 390 m. were contractual debts and the rest were penalties. During the proceedings, the court concluded that Segezha Group had not finally settled with the IT company because the contractor had not completed the work to the end. And errors were found in some of the processes that BeringPoint had automated.
The contract for digital transformation for RUB 1.128 bn was signed by the parties in 2019. Segezha Group paid for each stage of the work separately. At some point, the customer discovered an error in the automation system, which incorrectly estimated paper consumption. BeringPoint partially acknowledged these claims, but pointed out that the terms of reference did not take a number of things into account, and Segezha Group accepted the work. Segezha Group confirmed the acceptance of the works, noting that the problems had a delayed effect and it was not possible to identify them at the acceptance stage. Further inspection of the system revealed other problem areas.
Segezha Group transferred a total of RUB 982 m. to BeringPoint as part of the payment under the contract. Without waiting for the final payment, the IT company went to court, and Segezha Group initiated an expert examination, which concluded that, including VAT, BeringPoint had performed work for RUB 824 m. instead of the contractual RUB 1.128 bn.
According to Kirill Katkov, a lawyer at Maxima Legal, BeringPoint’s chances of recovering from Segezha Group have significantly decreased after the results of the expert examination, and for cases related to the creation of various digital platforms, the results of the conclusion play a decisive role.
Commenting on the dispute, the expert drew Mashnews’ attention to the fact that digitalisation and production management systems are also subject to quality guarantees. ‘The customer is entitled to submit its claims related to defects in the digitalisation system if they are discovered within the warranty period. If the warranty period for the work is not established in the contract, the legal provision applies, according to which quality claims may be brought by the customer provided that they were discovered within a reasonable period of time, but within two years from the date of handing over the result of the work,’ the lawyer said.
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