Errors in the technical task led to a delay — the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation found no grounds for rejecting the state contract
The contractor completed the design work on time. During the state examination, the customer found that he had not taken into account a number of items in the technical task, and asked to include them in the project. The contractor did it, but the customer refused the contract — the final result of the work was not achieved on time.
Later, the project received a positive conclusion. Acceptance certificates were sent to the customer. He didn't pay for the work.
The first instance did not collect the payment:
the contract was not executed on time, so the refusal of it is legal;
before the refusal came into force, the result of the work was not transferred to the customer. You do not need to pay for them.
The appeal decided otherwise:
the customer asked to perform additional work because of his omissions in the technical task. The delay was his fault. The integrity of the contractor was confirmed by the inspectors;
the customer did not prove that the works were flawed and without consumer value. He did not send claims to the contractor;
the result of the work was handed over before the refusal took effect. The customer sent the notification to the wrong email address and did not prove that the contractor received it.
The cassation upheld the appeal.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation did not review the case.
Recall that recently the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation agreed that the motivated refusal of the customer is illegal, since the delay was his fault.
Document: Definition of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from 10.06.2022 N 308-ES22-8194