Indian-owned Datasel says Estonia caused losses in shell contract

Indian-owned company Datasel says it suffered losses after Estonia’s Defence Investment Centre terminated contracts for the supply of artillery shells, ERR reported. The company says it received 59 million euros in advance payments and could have fulfilled its obligations if the contracts had not been cancelled.

The Defence Investment Centre, known by its Estonian acronym RKIK, terminated the contracts last autumn and asked Datasel to return the advance payment. Datasel disputed the decision, prompting RKIK to take the matter to an Estonian court and international arbitration this spring.

“Datasel is the party that has suffered losses in connection with these supply contracts,” the company said through its lawyer, according to Eesti Ekspress. It called RKIK’s reasons for terminating the contracts extraordinarily contradictory and illogical.

Datasel confirmed receiving 59 million euros in advance payments from RKIK. The centre has said that 70 million euros is connected to the shell deal. Eesti Ekspress reported that it did not know where the remaining money was if it was not in the hands of the Indian owners.

Datasel said it had supplied RKIK with a significant quantity of goods against the advance payments and had issued invoices totalling 58 million euros.

The company rejected Estonian defence officials’ claims that some of the goods delivered to a storage facility were of insufficient quality. However, it acknowledged that deliveries had been delayed because of a complex supply chain.

Datasel said it was eventually told that RKIK could not accept the remaining goods. The company stressed that this also applied to goods already in production or ready for delivery.

Datasel said it remained committed to fulfilling the rest of the contract and was prepared to complete it and deliver the goods if RKIK met its own obligations.