Judgment of Poznań Regional Court in Łódź Fabryczna railway station case advantageous for designer
14.02.2017
On 2 February 2017 the Poznań Regional Court announced an appealable judgment awarding the designers of the Łódź Fabryczna railway station—one French and one Italian company, members of a group that is a world leader in the design of railway and transport infrastructure—jointly and severally, a decision entitling them to recover from a consortium of contractors PLN 16.01 million and PLN 3.35 million respectively. The amounts represent unpaid remuneration due to the designers that has been reduced by a contractual delay penalty of PLN 200,000 that the designers are to pay as the only compensation.
In its justification, the court emphasised that the contractors could not claim from the designers contractual penalties for termination of the contract and delays in design. The penalties claimed by the consortium of contractors exceeded PLN 50 million. The regional court ruled that the termination of the contract by the consortium of contractors in December 2013 was ineffective and not justified. The court decided also that the calculation of delay penalties for design which was based on one of the schedules exchanged by the parties during contract execution was not justified.
The regional court also decisively reduced the contractual penalties for the delay in submitting monthly reports on the progress of the design activities. Only PLN 200,000 was accepted by the court out of the PLN 16.38 million in contractual penalties claimed by the consortium of contractors in relation to the delay in submitting the monthly reports. Reduction to this amount in the opinion of the court was justified because the contractors did not suffer any real harm.
Paweł Mazur and Marcin Lemkowski, advocates from Wardyński & Partners, represented the designers.