The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation confirmed from what date to charge penalties for late execution of the state contract.
The parties signed a contract for the work. According to him, the result must be submitted by December 20. We did it almost a year later.
The customer has accrued penalties since December 20: in his opinion, the preposition "before" means the end of the term on December 19. The contractor did not pay them. The customer appealed to the court.
The courts supported him, but corrected the calculation of the penalty, because:
the deadline for the completion of works is until December 20. So, the delay could not have occurred earlier than December 21;
the preposition "before" does not affect its start date. This approach is used in judicial practice. There is no other rule in the legislation on how to calculate deadlines with the wording "before the specified date".
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has not reviewed the case.
Recall: earlier, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation expressed a similar opinion about taking into account the preposition "before" when calculating the penalty. A similar position is taken, in particular, by the AU of the Volga, North Caucasus and Ural districts. However, the AC of the Moscow District has a different point of view.
Document: Definition of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of 15.04.2022 N 303-ES22-4943