The Court of Arbitration of Bryansk region has ordered CJSC Pobeda Agro (Pobeda) to pay Miratorg RUB114 million (€1.57m) in outstanding debt and a further RUB7m (€98,466) in legal costs.
The complaint surrounds the sale of poultry feed which Miratorg produced and supplied to chicken facilities run by Bely Fregat Group in Bryansk and Volgograd. Between 2015 and 2016 Miratorg claimed it supplied feed to the company’s subsidiary, Pobeda, at a cost of more than RUB316m (€4.3m).
Miratorg claimed Pobeda did not fulfil its commercial obligation to pay for the feed in a timely manner and, from March 2016, Pobeda suspended payments entirely. This led Miratorg to challenge the decision in a court of law to recoup its owned money.
‘Disinterested’ in talks
In an email sent to GlobalMeatNews, Miratorg blasted Pobeda for being unwilling to engage in constructive discussion over the repayment of outstanding debts.
“The court judgment has confirmed our rightness once again,” said Alexander Krasnov, head of Miratorg’s legal department.
“Unfortunately the debtor appears to be disinterested in constructive negotiations about the debt discharge. The poultry market is now going through hard times. In our estimation, the size of the Bely Fregat Group’s overdue debt exceeds RUB1bn. Therefore, we have some reasonable doubts over the debtor’s ability to discharge his obligations towards us.”
Agribusiness Miratorg claims to be largest meat producer in Russia, with 19 poultry farms, 27 pig farms, one beef feedlot, three meat processing plants and 27 logistics centres.
Pobeda could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.