The preliminary sitting of Chelyabinsk Region Court of Arbitration concerning the claim laid by Starwood Trading Ltd. against Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust JSC (currently managed by ESTAR) took place yesterday.

The plaintiff demanded that the defendant pay 18.5m RUR in compensation for the faulty produce previously supplied by the latter.

As the spokesperson for Sovetnik Ltd., the legal representative of the plaintiff, said to UrBC representative, the court sitting was aimed at letting the two parties present their cases. The defendants tried appealing against the claim, yet, in the plaintiff’s opinion, the arguments were mainly aimed at trying to procrastinate the time using some legal loopholes. Without claiming that the evidence is falsified, the representative of the defendant still suggested that the plaintiff might not have been fully honest when compiling it. This is why the defendant asked for another preliminary hearing, but the court declined this request.

‘Another court sitting would definitely slow down all the proceedings,’ say the plaintiff’s representatives, who believe that their claim is fully grounded. ‘The strength of our evidence is to be tested at the next sitting, but the existing law proves us right,’ the spokesperson for Sovetnik Ltd. said.

Meanwhile, the plaintiff is still willing to negotiate for a voluntary settlement of the case on condition that their demands are met. ‘However, the defendant did not make any attempts whatsoever towards an out-of-court settlement,’ declared the representative of Starwood Trading Ltd. in Chelyabinsk. So the court meeting should take place on September 12, 2006.

The claim was placed with Chelyabinsk Region Court of Arbitration on May 10, 2006. The plaintiff then claimed that Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust had been supplying them with faulty rolled metal from December 2004 to April 2005 and there were four shipments of faulty goods altogether. The supplier compensated for the first two shipments voluntarily, yet there emerged some disagreements on the final shipments, which led to legal action against the company of Zlatoust.