When a Ukrainian Company Fails to Perform a Contract: How a Foreign Business Can Secure a Practical Outcome

You have performed your part of the transaction: paid an advance, provided the required information, delivered the goods, or completed an agreed stage of work. The Ukrainian counterparty was expected to take the next step, but the contractual deadline has long since passed. There has been no delivery, the project has stalled, the documents have not been provided, or the invoice remains unpaid.

The counterparty has not expressly refused to perform. It still answers emails, explains the delay, and asks for a few more weeks. The contract remains in place, but in practice your company is financing the counterparty’s delay without knowing whether the promised result will ever materialise.

The natural response is to demand that the Ukrainian party “perform the contract”. That is not precise enough for court proceedings. The claim must seek specific relief: payment of a stated amount, delivery of clearly identified property, termination of the contract, or repayment of funds.

This choice shapes the entire dispute. You may prove a breach and still lose because the claim seeks a remedy that does not fit the facts. You may even obtain a favourable judgment that fails to solve the commercial problem and requires a second claim. The first question is therefore not “can we litigate in Ukraine?” but “which claim gives us the best chance of recovering our money, obtaining the goods, or regaining control over the project?”

During a prolonged delay, both the commercial purpose of the contract and the Ukrainian counterparty’s ability to perform may change. If the business is facing a temporary cash-flow shortfall, new receipts are often allocated to its most urgent liabilities, effectively placing an older contract in an informal queue. If the supplier has lost a subcontractor, raw materials, or key personnel, another promised date means little without evidence of actual progress. If the advance payment has already been used for other orders, repayment will depend not on another assurance from a company representative but on whether the Ukrainian company has available funds or liquid assets. None of these scenarios proves fraud by itself, but each explains why continued waiting without independent verification increases the risk.

Focus on the current position, not the original plan. Has the Ukrainian counterparty produced the goods for which you paid? Can your business use any part of the work already completed? Can the counterparty perform its remaining obligations without further funding? The answers indicate whether preserving the contractual relationship still makes sense or whether it is time to pursue a monetary claim.

Ukrainian law recognises specific performance as a remedy. A court can grant it only where the obligation is already due, clearly defined, and still capable of performance. Your company must also show that it took each step required of it: paid the agreed amount, provided the necessary data, nominated a carrier, or took another action on which the Ukrainian counterparty’s performance depended.

Assume the judgment will be enforced tomorrow. Will your business receive what it went to court to obtain? The answer may be yes if the dispute concerns specifically identified equipment, a finished batch of goods, source code, documentation, or another completed deliverable. The relief sought must identify exactly what the defendant must do, the property or deliverable concerned, and the party to whom performance is owed.

A claim that merely asks the court to “order performance of the contract” leaves the original disagreements unresolved. How much work must be completed? How will quality be assessed? Who must accept the result? When does the corresponding payment become due? If those questions remain open after judgment, the decision will not resolve the dispute.

The Supreme Court considered this issue on 20 March 2026 in Case №910/8181/24. A supplier sought an order compelling the buyer to accept the remaining goods. The Court held that such an order would neither secure payment for the supplier nor resolve potential disputes over acceptance, and that it lacked an effective enforcement mechanism. In those circumstances, the effective remedy was a claim for payment of the price of the goods the buyer had agreed to purchase, rather than an order merely restating the buyer’s contractual duty to accept them.

A monetary claim is usually more practical if the goods or other promised deliverable are no longer needed, cannot be shown to exist, or the Ukrainian counterparty is no longer capable of performing. Depending on the facts, the claim may seek payment of an outstanding debt, repayment of an advance, termination of the contract, contractual penalties, interest, or damages.

Do not turn a single commercial failure into the largest claim that can be pleaded. The principal debt, contractual penalties, and damages require different evidence. To recover the principal debt, prove your own performance, the amount due, and the payment deadline. To recover an advance, link the payment to the particular contract, establish the counterparty’s failure to perform the corresponding obligation, and identify the legal basis for repayment. To recover damages, prove both the amount of the loss and its causal connection with the breach.

Your correspondence with the Ukrainian counterparty should support the position you have chosen. If you demand completion of the project today, request repayment tomorrow, and agree to another extension the following day, the defendant may argue that the parties continued to treat the contract as ongoing and that no final demand for payment was made. The strategy may change, but the reason for the change and the remedy now pursued should be recorded in writing.

Preparing a contractual claim begins with reconstructing the entire transaction. The contract is only the starting point of the evidential chain. We establish who assumed each obligation, what each party was required to do, when performance became due, how the relationship developed, and precisely how the Ukrainian counterparty breached the contract. If the documents do not support a coherent account of the transaction, we identify the gaps and inconsistencies before proceedings begin.

We first sort the documents by company, contract, and payment. A foreign group may negotiate under one brand, pay invoices through different legal entities, and receive documents from several related Ukrainian businesses. During the transaction, this may look like an internal administrative matter. In court, those distinctions determine which entity is entitled to recover the money and which entity is liable for the obligation.

We begin with the strongest defences the Ukrainian counterparty is likely to raise. It may claim that it did not receive the full advance, was waiting for technical specifications or shipping instructions, agreed a revised deadline with you, provided part of the agreed deliverable, or contracted with a different company in your group. Each potential defence indicates which documents must be located and prepared before a claim is filed.

In a supply dispute, we compare the contract, specifications, invoices, SWIFT confirmations, transport documents, and notices that the goods were ready for shipment. In a dispute involving work or services, we also review the statement of work, agreed milestones, files and other deliverables provided, acceptance records, review comments, and project history. In a claim for payment of an outstanding invoice, we do not rely on the invoice alone. We also establish that the goods were delivered or the agreed deliverables were provided, that the person who accepted them had authority to do so, and that payment is overdue.

We separately examine how the parties amended the contract after signature. A revised deadline, scope of work, or acceptance procedure may have been agreed by email or through messaging platforms. The defendant may argue that your continued willingness to wait amounted to an agreed extension, or that using part of the deliverable amounted to acceptance. A complete correspondence trail showing dates, participants, and context therefore has greater evidential value than selected screenshots supporting only one account.

We then set out the entire position in a single formal demand. It identifies the breach, the amount claimed or other specific remedy sought, the legal basis for the claim, the deadline for voluntary compliance, and the consequences of non-compliance. Its purpose is to remove ambiguity and place your final position on record.

At the same time, we verify the applicable limitation period. The general limitation period is three years. Since 2020, however, special rules introduced during the COVID-19 quarantine and martial law have changed how that period is calculated. A claim may therefore still be available under some contracts dating back to 2017. The affected limitation periods began running again on 4 September 2025, so the remaining time must be calculated separately for each claim.

Even a legally strong case does not guarantee recovery if the Ukrainian counterparty has no funds or assets. A Ukrainian company may maintain a website, employ staff, and accept new orders without owning the warehouse, vehicles, or equipment it uses. Those assets may belong to third parties or related companies. Enforcement is directed against the assets of the specific debtor, not every asset used by businesses operating under the same brand.

Potential sources of recovery include funds in bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, equipment, inventory, and equity interests held by the debtor in other legal entities.

Before proceedings, we review the counterparty’s registration status, changes in its management and ownership, court cases, enforcement proceedings, indicators of insolvency, and available information about its assets. We compare the current position with the history of changes rather than relying on a snapshot from a single date. New creditors, a change of registered address after the breach, or the disposal of property may indicate that the prospects of effective recovery are deteriorating.

If the available records indicate that an asset may be sold, transferred, or encumbered unless urgent action is taken, we consider interim measures. Ukrainian law allows a court to grant such measures before a claim is filed or while proceedings are pending. The court will not grant a freezing order automatically: the applicant must show a specific risk to future enforcement, a connection between the requested measure and the claim, and that the restriction is proportionate.

A supply dispute illustrates the point. A foreign buyer paid an advance to a Ukrainian timber supplier but did not receive the goods. After a prolonged delay, delivery at an uncertain future date no longer served the client’s commercial objective. The strategy therefore shifted to terminating the contract and recovering the advance.

At first glance, the breach appeared straightforward: payment had been made, but the goods had not been delivered. The principal difficulty, however, was proving the amount of the claim. Payments under several contracts had been made by different parties, while bank charges meant that the amounts shown in the SWIFT payment records differed from those actually credited to the supplier’s account. The counterparty relied on these discrepancies to argue that the advance had not been paid in full and that some of the documents related to other transactions.

The analysis first separated the transfers by payer and contract. Each payment instruction was then reconciled with the amount actually credited to the supplier’s account. This established the purpose and origin of each transfer and the amount the supplier received. The claim included only the portion of the advance that could be directly linked to the particular contract.

The court examined the bank records, terminated the contract, and ordered repayment of the amount established by those records. The outcome depended on more than the fact that delivery had not taken place. The chosen remedy matched the client’s objective, and a coherent evidential chain supported the amount claimed.

This is where the lawyer’s work is essential. Counsel must identify the correct claimant and defendant, select a legally available remedy, reconcile the payments relating to the contract, and prepare the case around the likely defences. Errors on these points cannot be cured at the enforcement stage.

For a foreign company, the path to a practical outcome begins not with filing a claim but with a properly prepared strategy. The court must be presented with a clear, documented account of the transaction and a claim tailored to the client’s commercial objective.