PRESS: Russia’s Euroset can resume sales of Samsung devices

MOSCOW, Dec 7 (PRIME) -- Russian handset retailer Euroset is ready to pay half of its 1.22 billion ruble debt to Samsung and resume sales of the South Korean company’s devices in order to settle the court dispute amicably, business daily Vedomosti reported Wednesday.

A Samsung spokesperson said on Tuesday at hearings of the Moscow Arbitration Court that the company intends to sign an amicable agreement with Euroset on its lawsuit to recover the penalty from the retailer.

Samsung filed the lawsuit for 1.22 billion rubles to Euroset in October 2015. The South Korean company said Euroset-retail, which manages the seller’s chain, had delayed payments for the products supplied in October 2012–September 2015, during which Samsung delivered electronics and software for 52 billion rubles in total.

A source close to Euroset’s shareholders told the daily that the companies are discussing an option of paying by Euroset a half of the claimed amount, or 600 million rubles. A person close to the plaintiff’s managers said the second condition of the agreement is returning of Samsung devices to Euroset’s stores, which halted their sales in the middle of 2015.

Euroset, as well as its shareholders, mobile operators VimpelCom and MegaFon, stopped selling Samsung devices after mobile operator MTS, which runs its monobrand chain, had dramatically cut prices of products by Samsung.

VimpelCom, working under the Beeline brand, resumed sales of Samsung devices in August.

Konstantin Ankilov, general director of researcher TMT Consulting, does not expect radical changes on the market of mobile retail and services with Samsung’s returning to Euroset, but the move will be logical and mutually-beneficial.

(63.8741 rubles – U.S. $1)

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