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The Moscow City Court sided with the lessees
The Moscow City Court sided with the lessees
On April 6, the Moscow City Court overturned the decision of the Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow and agreed with the calculation of the balance prepared by the lawyer of the law firm “Yurproekt”
Leasing agreement: legal confusion
As you know, the second official name of leasing in Russian legislation is financial lease. However, in its economic essence, leasing is much closer to buying equipment using credit funds. And there is a big practical difference between these options:
1. If leasing is a lease, then all payments on it are lease payments. In case of early termination of the contract, you cannot demand them back.
2. If leasing is a purchase on credit, then payments include the purchase price of equipment and the profit of the leasing company - the so-called “financing fee" (something like interest on a loan). Then, with the early termination of the lease, you need to act as with the early closure of the loan, that is, calculate the accrued interest for the actual duration of the contract.
Mathematics from the Supreme
Arbitration Court
The fact that the second option (leasing = credit) is correct was explained by the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation back in 2014 (Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation No. 17 of March 14, 2014). Moreover, the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation has given specific mathematical formulas by which it is possible to calculate both the percentage of the financing fee and to deduce the final balance upon termination of the contract.
Lessors strike back
Despite such detailed explanations, in recent years, judicial practice has again developed not in favor of lessees. The fact is that leasing companies have begun to include in their contracts conditions that do not allow the calculation of the balance according to the rules described by the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation. The wording could be very different, for example, that all payments in excess of the balance are lost profits of the leasing company. But the essence has always remained the same - the lessee must pay “interest” for the entire term of the contract, even though the contract was terminated prematurely. The courts have long recognized such conditions as legitimate and refused to calculate the balance. The situation was especially difficult in the courts of general jurisdiction, which were already wary of explanations from the Supreme Arbitration Court.
Question:
Why do leasing cases generally end up in the courts of general jurisdiction? After all, these are purely entrepreneurial disputes!
Answer:
The fact is that leasing companies often require that the founder and/or director of the lessee organization become the guarantor for the transaction. Since it is submitted simultaneously to both the organization and the guarantor, the entire dispute falls under general jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court clarifies
In October 2021, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation issues a voluminous Review of judicial practice on disputes from leasing contracts. The most important explanation of this review - the conditions for the payment of lease payments for the entire term of the contract, despite its early termination - is negligible. That is, no matter how cunningly the terms of the leasing agreement are formulated, when terminating the contract, we must apply the formulas from the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation No. 17.
The Supreme Court even gave several examples of such conditions, including the recovery of “extra” payments as lost profits or compensation for losses. However, of course, all possible variants of such conditions were not listed in the Review.
Dispute with LC Europlan
A former client of the Europlan Leasing Company applied to the Yurproject SC. After the early termination of the leasing agreement, Europlan, having already taken and sold the equipment, demanded from him to pay an additional 1.3 million rubles.
The leasing company did not calculate the balance according to the rules of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation No. 17, since their standard leasing rules provided for a different formula for calculating the balance. The Europlan court also pointed out that the wording of their Rules does not fall under any of the examples from the Review of Practice, therefore this condition cannot be considered null and void. However, as a “gesture of goodwill”, he reduced the amount of claims to 500 thousand rubles. Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow agreed with the arguments of Europlan and in December 2021 recovered the entire amount claimed.
However, on April 6, 2022, our lawyer Daria Tretyakova achieved the cancellation of this decision on appeal. The Moscow City Court agreed with her arguments about the nullity of the disputed points of the Leasing Rules, and also recognized her calculation of the balance under the contract as correct. As a result, out of the 1.3 million rubles originally calculated by the leasing company, only 200 thousand rubles were recovered from our principal.
On April 6, the Moscow City Court overturned the decision of the Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow and agreed with the calculation of the balance prepared by the lawyer of the law firm “Yurproekt”
Leasing agreement: legal confusion
As you know, the second official name of leasing in Russian legislation is financial lease. However, in its economic essence, leasing is much closer to buying equipment using credit funds. And there is a big practical difference between these options:
1. If leasing is a lease, then all payments on it are lease payments. In case of early termination of the contract, you cannot demand them back.
2. If leasing is a purchase on credit, then payments include the purchase price of equipment and the profit of the leasing company - the so-called “financing fee" (something like interest on a loan). Then, with the early termination of the lease, you need to act as with the early closure of the loan, that is, calculate the accrued interest for the actual duration of the contract.
Mathematics from the Supreme
Arbitration Court
The fact that the second option (leasing = credit) is correct was explained by the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation back in 2014 (Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation No. 17 of March 14, 2014). Moreover, the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation has given specific mathematical formulas by which it is possible to calculate both the percentage of the financing fee and to deduce the final balance upon termination of the contract.
Lessors strike back
Despite such detailed explanations, in recent years, judicial practice has again developed not in favor of lessees. The fact is that leasing companies have begun to include in their contracts conditions that do not allow the calculation of the balance according to the rules described by the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation. The wording could be very different, for example, that all payments in excess of the balance are lost profits of the leasing company. But the essence has always remained the same - the lessee must pay “interest” for the entire term of the contract, even though the contract was terminated prematurely. The courts have long recognized such conditions as legitimate and refused to calculate the balance. The situation was especially difficult in the courts of general jurisdiction, which were already wary of explanations from the Supreme Arbitration Court.
Question:
Why do leasing cases generally end up in the courts of general jurisdiction? After all, these are purely entrepreneurial disputes!
Answer:
The fact is that leasing companies often require that the founder and/or director of the lessee organization become the guarantor for the transaction. Since it is submitted simultaneously to both the organization and the guarantor, the entire dispute falls under general jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court clarifies
In October 2021, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation issues a voluminous Review of judicial practice on disputes from leasing contracts. The most important explanation of this review - the conditions for the payment of lease payments for the entire term of the contract, despite its early termination - is negligible. That is, no matter how cunningly the terms of the leasing agreement are formulated, when terminating the contract, we must apply the formulas from the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation No. 17.
The Supreme Court even gave several examples of such conditions, including the recovery of “extra” payments as lost profits or compensation for losses. However, of course, all possible variants of such conditions were not listed in the Review.
Dispute with LC Europlan
A former client of the Europlan Leasing Company applied to the Yurproject SC. After the early termination of the leasing agreement, Europlan, having already taken and sold the equipment, demanded from him to pay an additional 1.3 million rubles.
The leasing company did not calculate the balance according to the rules of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation No. 17, since their standard leasing rules provided for a different formula for calculating the balance. The Europlan court also pointed out that the wording of their Rules does not fall under any of the examples from the Review of Practice, therefore this condition cannot be considered null and void. However, as a “gesture of goodwill”, he reduced the amount of claims to 500 thousand rubles. Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow agreed with the arguments of Europlan and in December 2021 recovered the entire amount claimed.
However, on April 6, 2022, our lawyer Daria Tretyakova achieved the cancellation of this decision on appeal. The Moscow City Court agreed with her arguments about the nullity of the disputed points of the Leasing Rules, and also recognized her calculation of the balance under the contract as correct. As a result, out of the 1.3 million rubles originally calculated by the leasing company, only 200 thousand rubles were recovered from our principal.