The court of first instance's decision was overturned by the court of appeal.

• 2017-10-03

Based on the agreement   <<MLL industries>> LLC [hereafter the claimant] supplied goods to <<E.M.H. construction>> CJSC [hereafter the respondent].    After the supply of the goods, the claimant submitted an electronic tax invoice, which was confirmed by the electronic signature of the respondent.

The respondent did not fulfill its obligations, particularly the payment for the supplied goods, which gave the claimant a legal basis to enforce the contract by way of judicial proceedings. In the present case, having examined the evidence presented by claimant, the court of the first instance found that the claim should be dismissed   having regard that no evidence has been provided which would ascertain the confirmation of the tax invoice by the respondent. On behalf of the claimant, we lodged an appeal against the decision of the court of first instance. In the appeal, we  noted  that the court had failed to apply Articles 345, 436, 521, 450, 347, and 348 of the Civil Code of RA, violated Articles 48 and 53 of the Civil Procedure Code of RA, which led to the wrong resolution of the case.

The Civil court of appeal correctly applied articles 345, 347 of the Civil Code and came to the conclusion that the first instance court’s findings were ill-founded, as it failed to properly consider the evidence provided by the claimant. The court of appeal found that the tax invoices submitted by the claimant with regard to the supply of goods contained substantial information, particularly relating to the obligation by the respondent to pay for the supplied goods. Moreover, the court provided that the above-mentioned information was directly related to the parties’ legal relationship, mainly the supply of goods and was therefore sufficient to resolve the case.

In other words, the Civil Court of Appeal concluded that the tax invoices of supply of goods were relevant and admissible evidence in the present case and they should have been evaluated from a credibility standpoint/perspective taking into consideration the respondent’s position.

With the justifications outlined above, the Civil Court of appeal came to the conclusion that the Court of first instance had violated article 53, paragraph 1 of Civil Code of RA and had delivered unjust judicial act. The Civil Court of Appeal found that the grounds raised in the appeal were well-founded, and as a consequence, the decision of the lower court was overturned and the case reverted back for a new trial