Mario Lancetti (owner of the Popcorn company) and Lorenzo Sindaco (owner of the Sindaco company), co-owners of patent rights for the production of vending machines, granted Sindaco srl a license to produce the machines in question and Popcorn srl an exclusive sales license.

Since Sindaco ltd had previously carried out research and development activities on behalf of Popcorn ltd, accruing a substantial debt, Popcorn ltd obligated itself to pay off the debt through the proceeds of future sales. To guarantee payment, it handed Sindaco srl post-dated checks and also entered into a “first demand” surety bond.

However, from the outset, the machines produced by Sindaco ltd and marketed by Popcorn ltd had serious defects.

In the face of this, Sindaco ltd, instead of remedying the defects found, which indeed it also denied by means of technical opinions, cashed the postdated checks and attempted to enforce the surety bond.

The Popcorn ltd. company, having found itself on the verge of bankruptcy due to the conduct of Mayor ltd. approached my firm asking it to do what it could to avoid the impending collapse.

Here then - proposing an urgent precautionary action, within a few days - I was able to obtain the seizure of the checks, on the grounds that the guarantee agreement underlying the delivery of postdated bank checks was null and void.

The Court also granted Popcorn srl an injunction on the surety bond, resulting in an order to the Bank not to pay anything to Sindaco srl, which was attempting to collect money from the same surety bond despite the presence of serious defects in the goods and Popcorn srl's consequent right to compensation for damages.

At the end of the lawsuit that followed the aforementioned measures taken provisionally and urgently, the Court of Vicenza upheld all claims and ruled that:
- Sindaco srl was obliged to return the checks given as guarantee and previously seized;
- The surety bond was to be considered ineffective and Popcorn released;
- Sindaco srl was obliged to indemnify Popcorn srl for all damages (expenses incurred to advertise the products that turned out to be defective, machine repair costs, customer refunds, lost revenue and others, amounting to more than €200,000.00);
- Sindaco srl was ordered to pay approximately €10,000 for reckless litigation under Article 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure, having acted in the trial in bad faith;
- Sindaco srl was finally ordered to pay court costs to Popcorn srl. To protect privacy, the names of the parties have been replaced with fictitious names.