Shalva Chigirinsky at a presentation of the Boucheron anniversary collection.
Photo: Valery Levitin
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Moscow Oil Refinery Contractor Goes to Arbitration
// An economic dispute
Kommersant has learned that on Tuesday, an arbitration tribunal formed with the assistance of the arbitration institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce satisfied the claim of the American Joy-Lud Distributors International (JLDI) against the Moscow Oil Refinery under a ten-year-old contract. The tribunal decided that the refinery must pay JLDI only slightly more than $28 million of the $470 million demanded from it. In order to get this money JLDI will have to get the Moscow Arbitration Court to recognize the decision of the Stockholm arbitrator.
JLDI, which belongs to Timur Sapir, a Georgian emigrant living in the United States (Teimuraz Sepiashvili before emigration), began arbitration proceedings with the Moscow Oil Refinery (MNPZ) under the UNSITRAL regulations in October 2003, accusing MNPZ of breach of a contract of 1995, according to which the refinery was supposed to deliver diesel fuel and fuel oil to JLDI worth a total of $800 million. JLDI's claims against MNPZ amounted to $315 million not counting interest.
Informed sources told Kommersant that on Tuesday, the arbitrators in Stockholm rendered a decision in the proceedings between JLDI and MNPZ. They decided that the refinery must pay JLDI $28 million as compensation for the unrealized profit resulting from the interruption of deliveries.
Larisa Riabchenko, the director of OOO Biel Legal Consulting Company, which is representing JLDI's legal interests, confirmed to Kommersant yesterday that such a decision had been made. According to her, JLDI has three years to obtain confirmation of execution of the decision in the Moscow Arbitration Court. Riabchenko considers the decision of the arbitration tribunal in Stockholm a victory, but told Kommersant that her client had still not had time to issue his own opinion on the decision, which may be contested in Swedish courts. Kommersant was unable to reach Sapir for comment yesterday.
A source in the management of the Moscow Oil and Gas Company (MNGK), the refinery's principle shareholder, also confirmed to Kommersant that the arbitrators had already rendered their decision, but refused to discuss the details, saying that the UNSITRAL arbitration regulations and Swedish arbitration law prohibit disclosure of information on the proceedings and on decisions rendered. Another source close to MNGK told Kommersant that the company and MNPZ did not consider the arbitration tribunal of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce the proper place for the proceedings, but rates its results positively as a whole, considering how much the amounts of the claims was decreased.
We note that this is not Sapir's only legal dispute with MNPZ and its shareholders. As Kommersant already reported in 2003 and 2004, the shareholders were unable to get a contract with Fiber Technologies International Ltd (FTI), registered in the Cayman Islands declared illegal in any court. This company belongs to Sapir, and in 1995, MNPZ signed a design and construction contract for a plant to manufacture polyethylene articles with a capacity of 78,000 t per year and valued at $220 million. In order to implement this project, the company was offered customs, tax, and export concessions by order of then Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. JLDI was involved in the contract as a dealer in petroleum products.
In addition, as Riabchenko informed Kommersant, a claim of MNPZ shareholders against JLDI and MNPZ on enforcing the consequences of the invalidity of a deal between the refinery and JLDI will be heard in the Moscow Arbitration Court on June 22. The MNPZ shareholders, who, according to Riabchenko, did not even exist at the time the contract was signed, are demanding compensation from JLDI for allegedly unpaid deliveries of petroleum products amounting to nearly $176 million and payment of about $141 million in penalties. Riabchenko believes the plaintiffs have no chance of winning, whereas the source in MNGK's management, on the contrary, rates their chances as very good.
Kommersant will be following the development of events.
Denis Skorobogatko
All the Article in Russian as of June 17, 2005
|
|
|
