Supreme Court Plenum — a contractor on an unlawful state contract can no longer count on "unjust enrichment"
In reports of 31 August 2026, Azerbaijan's Supreme Court Plenum ruled that parties who knowingly broke procurement law lose court protection. The only exception is a good-faith contractor, and the burden of proof is on the contractor.
Until recently the route was well known. A contractor signed a contract with a state body, delivered the work, and if the contract later turned out to violate procurement law, the court voided it and awarded the contractor the average market value of the work anyway, through the doctrine of "unjust enrichment" (əsassız varlanma).
According to reports by marja.az, Trend and Konkret on 31 August 2026, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan has closed that route.
The new rule in three sentences
- If the parties knowingly broke the law, the court does not protect their interests.
- Recovery through "unjust enrichment" is, as a rule, no longer available.
- Performing the work no longer guarantees payment.
Oral contracts are inadmissible, according to Konkret and Trend.
The exception, and the trap in it
A contractor who did not know that the contract was unlawful, and had no way of knowing, can still recover at average market price. The burden of proving "I could not have known" sits with the contractor. If the procurement was never announced, if the procedure type does not match the contract value, or if the contract was signed two days after the announcement, that argument is hard to make in court.
Three checks before signing
- Was this procurement announced? No announcement is the first warning sign.
- Which procedure was used, and does it match the value?
- How does this procuring entity usually buy: its share of single-source awards, the days between announcement and contract?
All three answers live in open data. AZTender puts them on one screen: procedure type, announcement trail, dates, the procuring entity's track record. The legal judgment belongs to a lawyer, but a documented check is the foundation of a "good-faith contractor" position.
The full text and number of the Plenum decision had not been published on supremecourt.gov.az at the time of writing; this article will be updated with a link when it is.
