Legal issue: the constitutionality of contested rules as implying the right of the lessee to recover from the lessor at the termination of the contract a part of previously made leasing payments as an unjust enrichment, regardless of the actual financial result of the leasing operation, and in particular regardless of the losses of the lessor, caused by the breach by the lessee of his obligations under contract and its subsequent termination.
Ratio decidendi: the contested rulеs do not per se violate the rights of the applicant. Leasing activity is a form of investment activity, and it constitutes a kind of financial services; commercial courts, when interpreting the conditions of particular transactions, including the determination of redemption price of the leased object at the termination of the contract, correlation between the payments received by the lessor and his investments for the acquisition of the object, and the distribution of risks between the parties to the contract, must proceed from the necessity to find a balanced solution regarding the interests of both lessor and lessee; the Supreme Commercial Court was right in holding that a delay in payments made by the lessee may not by itself enable the lessor to derive benefits which would put him in a better position as compared with the one in which he would have found himself in case of due performance of contractual obligations by the lessee; in the event of termination of the contract as a result of violation committed by the lessee, the latter should not be exonerated from his duty to compensate the lessor for the losses incurred.
