The arbitration team of Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners (ZRVP) had at the end of last year a new success in front of the Court of International Commercial Arbitration attached to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania in a dispute concerning the performance of a road infrastructure works contract initiated by the Contractor, an international construction company.

The works contract at the basis of the arbitration is a FIDIC contract concluded in 2011 that generated a series of arbitral disputes as a consequence of a successive prolongation of the works completion term. A first dispute was solved in 2019, where the Arbitral Tribunal stated that the reasons for the delay were related to the Beneficiary’s risk and were its fault, at which moment it acknowledged the Contractor’s entitlement to over lei 20 million.

The new success relied on the aspects stated as having the power of res judicata in the previous dispute and concerned the additional amounts incurred by the Contractor until the completion of the works, generated however by the same causes for delay.

“The solution our team obtained relies on the correct application of the res judicata principle in the context of successive disputes deriving from the same contract. Once the cause generating damages stated in a first arbitration, there can be no impediment in recognizing the Contractor’s claims deriving from the same illicit deed, despite the extremely technical defenses meant to change the cause that was at the basis of the new claimed amounts.” declared Alina Tugearu, partner of Zamfirescu Racoţi Vasile & Partners.

The team of lawyers, coordinated by Alina Tugearu, partner, was formed of Andra Constantinescu, managing associate, and Ion Enache, senior associate.