The owner of the Europolis shopping and entertainment complex filed a lawsuit against Burger King for rental debts of 32 million rubles

JSC Kashirsky Dvor-Severyanin, a subsidiary of FortGroup, which owns one of the largest Europolis shopping and entertainment complexes in Moscow, filed a lawsuit for 32 million rubles against Burger Rus LLC, which is developing the Burger King chain under an American franchise . The restaurant chain is located on the territory of the shopping center. As follows from the materials of “Kontur.Focus”, we are talking about non-fulfillment or inadequate fulfillment of obligations under lease agreements.

The court documents specify that the owner of the shopping complex will collect from Burger Rus a debt of 31 million rubles and a fine of 1 million rubles. The last time Burger Rus recorded large rental debts was during the pandemic. Then, within a month, the company received 27 claims for 56 million rubles, which became a record. Due to disputes, the company even lost the right to rent some iconic places in Moscow.

There is currently another rental case pending in court. The Rostov shopping and entertainment complex “Gorizont” demanded 1 million rubles from Burger Rus. We are talking about a fine for improper compliance with the obligation to timely submit reports on income from online orders. The agreement between the shopping center and Burger Rus establishes that one of the components of the rent is a billing fee, which is recorded in the reports.

“The tenant has committed, as of July 1, 2023, to provide the landlord with monthly reports on revenue from orders placed at the Burger King restaurant through mobile and desktop platforms for food payment and delivery (Deliveri Club , Yandex Food and others) indicating the number and addresses of the restaurant, the reporting period, detailing the dates and times of orders, order numbers, order amounts, payment methods, and also (at the request of the owner) in form of a document signed by an authorized person of the tenant. and certified by a seal,” emerges from the court materials.

The Gorizont shopping and entertainment complex considered that the tenant did not submit reports on time and charged 20 thousand rubles for each day of delay. The total amount of fines reached 3 million rubles, but the TRC reduced the claims to 1 million rubles as it finally received the reports. According to the results of the process, the court reduced the amount of the fine by half, up to 459 thousand rubles, but Burger Rus appealed this decision.

FortGroup and Burger Rus did not respond to RB.RU’s requests. The publication’s journalist asked for clarification. Oleg Voitsekhovsky, founder and general director of the Russian Council of Shopping Centers. The expert explained that tenants often pay shopping centers less for turnover when it comes to online orders.

“At first, the rent price for shopping centers in Russia was fixed. Tenants paid certain monthly amounts according to the contract. But to date, rental payments are mainly calculated from the turnover of shops and restaurants. There is a certain minimum that is paid in any case, and a percentage of the billing. In some cases, there may be no fixed fee at all. To determine the monthly rent amount, the landlord must obtain reliable sales data from the tenant. But tenants do not always include in their reports, for example, sales that were actually made in a certain store (restaurant), prepared and issued in the same way, but recorded as online sales,” Woitsekhovsky said.

According to experts, a conservative estimate of the volume of such underpayments can be 7-10%, and sometimes significantly higher.

“Taking these moments into account, it is clear where the roots of the greater profitability of online channels lie. To date, there is no general and comprehensive solution to these problems, and market participants use various methods to control the real sales situation at certain points. The question is very important, it is reflected in the list of problems of the shopping center industry in the program document “Strategy for the development of the shopping center industry,” the expert concluded.

However, Voitsekhovsky emphasized, this example cannot in any way be related to the essence of Europolis’ claims against Burger Rus. The first court hearing on the case is scheduled for July 24.