Assisting a Spanish energy company in performing servicing contracts for its supplied equipment

Kosta Legal has provided comprehensive legal assistance to a Spanish energy company that had supplied its equipment to an Uzbek state-owned electric power plant and entered into servicing contracts for maintaining the equipment on a long-term basis.

Under the contracts, foreign employees regularly entered the country to perform maintenance. Much legal support was needed from our side to organise their work inside the country by legalising their status as a foreign workforce and to re-structure the service contracts for ensuring necessary working conditions. A subsequent dispute on non-payment for the supplier’s maintenance services raised further questions on the right of foreign workers to suspend their work in response to a counterparty’s default. Our lawyers skilfully resolved these and other issues in favour of the Spanish client, interpreting rigid provisions of the Uzbek Labour Code in a creative way.

Our client is one of Europe’s largest engineering companies specialising in the construction of electricity generation facilities. The company has more than 50 years of international experience, supplying its installations across the world and providing contracting, maintenance and energy consultancy services.

The counterparty was the state-owned enterprise managing one of the country’s largest thermal power stations, being in operation since the early 1960s.