Businessman Ilya Treber lost the lawsuits to Vadim Serdyukov, the son of the former governor of Leningrad region.

Businessman Ilya Traber and his partners lost the lawsuits to Vadim Serdyukov, the son of the former governor of Leningrad region. The plaintiffs' complaints seemed unconvincing to the Arbitration Court.

The reason for the dispute was the sale of shares of “Rostok”, which controls the business of the energy company “LOESK”. The conflict was provoked by the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, because of which the regional tariff committee retroactively reduced the amount of the required gross revenue of LOESK, which is included in the tariff, by almost 4 billion rubles. The buyers did not calculate these risks.

Alexander Arbuzov, Partner and Head of Corporate Practice of the Duvernoix Legal law firm, sees it as a classic dispute for lawyers on large transactions about the assurances and guarantees given by the seller when selling the business.

"There are two types of guarantees: representations of circumstances and ordinary guarantees. If the seller provides representations, he is responsible for them, even when the buyer knows that they are not true. In the case of ordinary guarantees, the buyer's awareness of their unreliability excludes the seller's liability. Judging by the text of the decision, the court considered that the latter had taken place, and denied the claim, referring to the fact that the buyer knew about possible business problems," says Alexander Arbouzov.