Russian Goznak JSC, a Russian-owned enterprise responsible for printing banknotes, has suffered due to EU sanctions. Details of this can be found in the materials of the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.
On December 22, this court ruled on the dispute between Gosznak and the Swiss company Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions SA.
According to the materials of the court case, in 2020, Goznak and the Swiss company entered into an agreement, according to which the contractor was to carry out work on the transfer of the Super Orlof Intaglio printing press in the building at the Moscow branch of Goznak.
On June 30, 2020, the customer paid the company an advance payment of 50% of the cost of the work – 282,600 euros. However, on October 6, 2022, the European Union imposed sanctions on Goznak JSC, and Switzerland supported these sanctions. After that, Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions SA refused to fulfill the contract, citing sanctions. Goznak demanded to return the advance, but when the money was not received, he appealed to the court.
As a result, the arbitration court in Russia decided to recover 282,600 euros from Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions SA in favor of Goznak.
The case file says that “before the conclusion of the contract and the start of work … the machine was in working condition and was used to produce protected printing products, brought income to the enterprise, and then the machine was disassembled… The customer still does not have the opportunity to work on the machine.”
The Super Orlof Intaglio printing machine is also used for printing banknotes. In the Russian media, you can find a photo where Goznak employees are standing by this car with printed bills in denominations of one thousand rubles.
The court’s decision is available in the database of the arbitration court.
