Saint Petersburg R&D Institute levied 1.3 billion rubles from IKEA after it refused to build the Mega Shopping Mall

The Commercial Court of Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Region ruled to award 1.3 billion rubles from Ingka Centers Rus Property E (part of Ingka Holding Europe B.V., the company that used to manage IKEA stores and Mega shopping malls in Russia) to Northern Research & Development Institute of Water Engineering and Melioration (SevNIIGiM) for the refusal to build the Mega Novoselye Shopping Mall in the Leningrad Region, as reported by Kommersant. The court also charged 200,000 rubles of state duty from the foreign company.

The new shopping mall was supposed to be located on the land purchased from SevNIIGiM, while the institute itself was going to co-invest in the project. The proceedings on this case have continued since March 2023. The R&D Institute initially filed a claim for 2.08 billion rubles. The court, however, reduced this amount during the hearings that have been in progress since March 2023. Ingka Centers Rus Property E, in its turn, filed a counter-claim to SevNIIGiM for 1.3 billion rubles, TASS writes.