Stockholm, June 14 - Neftegaz.RU. A Swedish appeals court has ordered the suspension of a ruling by the Stockholm arbitration court that awarded Ukraine's Naftogaz Ukrayiny $4.6 billion in compensation over the transit of Russian gas to Europe, Platts reported on June 14.
The arbitration court ruled at the end of February that Gazprom should pay Naftogaz damages for not transiting the agreed volumes of Russian gas to Europe under the parties' 2009 transit accord.
Taking into account Gazprom's earlier $2 billion win in the arbitration ruling on Russian gas supply to Ukraine, Naftogaz was owed a net $2.6 billion by Gazprom.
Gazprom appealed against the award, saying the arbitration court was guilty of «double standards» in its arguments - taking into account Ukraine's economic difficulties as a reason for under-buying Russian gas but not taking the European economic downturn into account when ruling on Gazprom's underuse of the Ukrainian transit network.
«On June 13, the Svea County Court of Appeal granted the petition of Gazprom and ordered the suspension of the Stockholm Arbitration award of February 28 [...] on gas transit through Ukraine,» Gazprom said in a statement. It added that under Swedish arbitration law, an order of the Svea appeals court cannot be appealed. The petition was filed by Gazprom on June 7.
Gazprom said the order should mean Naftogaz cannot continue in its legal bid to seize assets from Gazprom in the Netherlands and Switzerland in its attempt to recover the $2.6 billion owed by the Russian company. «This factor will be used by Gazprom when appealing against the actions of bailiffs in Switzerland and the Netherlands,» it said.
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