MOSCOW, June 7 (RAPSI) – The Commercial Court of Stavropol, a town in Southern Russia, has recovered 21 million rubles ($322,000) in favor of a local water provider from McDonald’s, RAPSI learnt in the court on Tuesday.

According to the case materials, a McDonald’s restaurant in Stavropol had a water metering device of unknown type without manufacturing number installed instead of the original water meter, as it was found out during a routine check on June 2, 2015.

Respectively, the plaintiff calculated due payments for the period starting on May 27, 2014, the date of the previous inspection, till June 25, when the restaurant had to stop the use of the unqualified device. The total payments made 21 million rubles ($322,000).

McDonald’s petitioned to dismiss the claim, insisting that the check report failed to confirm any malfunction of the water meter in question and the correctness of calculations, and offered to pay the plaintiff 10,000 rubles ($150).

The court ruled that the defendant committed a breach of essential terms of agreement it had made with the plaintiff as concerned the metering of water flow.