A press conference on the adjudication of the second lawsuit filed by architect Eric Van Egeraat against Capital Group was held on 13 September. The proceedings concerned the Barvikha-Hills cottage community project. As a result of the expert examinations, the court confirmed the similarity of the project of Eric Van Egeraat, completed in 2003-2004, and the project documentation, according to which the construction of the village is now underway. The fact of illegal use of the design materials by EEA Architects by Capital Group was also confirmed. The court ordered the Capital Group company to pay compensation for non-fulfillment of contractual obligations and violation of the architect's copyright, in accordance with article 1259, part 4, of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
The press conference was attended by architect Eric Van Egeraat and lawyers Elena Trusova and Maxim Kulkov from Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners, who represented him during the trial.
According to Erik Van Egeraat, he is completely satisfied with the decisions on both claims and, in the event that Capital Group fulfills its obligations, he does not intend to sue the former customer for those five projects, work on which was stopped simultaneously with the projects of the Capital City "And" Barvikhi-Hills ".
“I am an architect and my business is to design, not to sue. Moreover, I have no shortage of interesting projects. Since I stopped working with Capital Group, I have got more than twenty new customers, working with whom is not only interesting, but also fruitful"
Background
Several years ago, at the beginning of the 2000s, Erik Van Egeraat became one of the first foreign architects to actively cooperate with Russian developers. In 2004, the fruitful cooperation, quite unexpectedly, in the opinion of the outsider, stopped. Capital Group froze part of the projects it had started, and transferred part of it for revision or processing to other bureaus. There were rumors that the gap was caused by the developer's dissatisfaction with the quality of the projects. This explanation, applied to a designer who works successfully around the world, left ample room for interpretation, fueled by conflicting comments from both sides involved in the conflict. Erik Van Egeraat has repeatedly expressed his disagreement with the claims of the former customer and his intention to seek payment of arrears and compensation for copyright infringement.
Process
Meanwhile, construction began on the City of Capitals complex and the Barvikha-Hills settlement. The first project underwent some changes, while the second did not differ much from the initial visualizations and planning schemes. The obvious "genetic" similarity of objects with the original sources made the break in relations between the author of the projects being implemented and their "implementer" especially ambiguous. An end to the misunderstandings and speculation was put in the spring of 2008.
On March 20, the first of two claims brought by Eric Van Egeraat to Capital Group ended. The architect kept his word and brought to an end the struggle for his professional reputation and copyright for the project of the City of Capitals complex.
After the victory in the Stockholm Arbitration Court on the Capital City project, the architect and lawyers representing his interests from the Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners Law Office faced an equally difficult task - to defend the architect's rights in relation to the Barvikha-Hills project in the Russian Arbitration Court …Some help, so to speak, for the plaintiff was the identity of the design documentation of the cottage community under construction with the materials that were developed by EEA Architects five years ago. This similarity was so clear that the defendant's lawyers, the Alrud firm, did not even dispute it. In their tactics, they had to appeal to the inconsistency of the EEA Architects project with Russian standards, and, consequently, its inconsistency with the terms of the concluded Agreement. But, according to the results of the examination carried out by the Federal Center for Forensic Expertise, the project was recognized as completed by 95% (5% was spent on incorrectly positioned stamps and the absence of explications in the drawings). As for the illegality of the use by Capital Group of design materials and drawings in self-advertising and in publications about the village, then without official confirmation of the transfer of these rights from the author of the project (and Eric Van Egeraat, of course, did not give such permission), then it is the same did not require special evidence.
Of all the claims presented, only the demand to stop the construction of the village was rejected. But it was put forward more from methodological considerations than from a desire to actually stop the construction.
As a result, the court satisfied 85% of the plaintiff's claims, thereby confirming that Russian legislation also has tools to protect the copyright and property rights of the architect from the arbitrariness of the customer. We have accumulated experience in litigation, there are specific recommendations for drafting contracts and maintaining business relationships, which can be adopted by all heads of design organizations suffering from the irresponsibility of customers.
Here and now
The resounding victory of the architect Erik Van Egeraat in the case of the "City of Capitals" project in the Court of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce this spring caused a great resonance in the media. But in a professional environment, she responded with only a few cues from domestic designers. There was no surge in copyright infringement litigation and business commitments. We can say that the court's decision attracted much more attention in construction and development circles, which took note of the possible complications when working with legally savvy foreign architects. The architectural community, represented by the Union of Moscow Architects and the Union of Architects of Russia, ignored this unprecedented fact. Perhaps such a detached reaction is the result of the deceptive impression that the essence of the proceedings has little to do with the realities of our country. In fact, the nationality of the actors and the place of the proceedings do not matter. This was confirmed by the second case of Egeraat against Capital Group.
The litigation on the second claim in connection with the Barvikha-Hills project took place in Moscow, in the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, and was based solely on Russian law. All three arbitrators (I. Devyatkin, E. Gavrilov, A. Sherstobitov) were Russians, the Russian organization also carried out an examination of the projects. Also Russian was the design bureau (Architectural bureau "Vorotnikovsky", data from the site https://www.capitalgroup.ru/ru/projects/premium/barvikha-hills), to which the Capital Group company entrusted the further development of working documentation. By the way, all over the world, before taking on such work, the designer makes inquiries and receives confirmation that the author of the transferred project has given formal consent to the further use of his ideas. This is the only way the bureau can insure itself against a compromising situation and accusations of plagiarism.
Thus, the surroundings of the trial can hardly be called “alien”. It remains to be hoped that his experience will become "his own" for the Russian architectural community.
