The decision of the Supreme Court to refuse the Ostchem Holding Limited company of Dmytro Firtash to comply with the decision of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce to recover over $300 million from Odesa-Port Side Plant for gas supplies causes mixed feelings and bears risks of consequences, Minister of Justice Denis Maliuska has said.
“The decision was also a surprise for me… On the one hand, as a citizen, I am glad that the funds will not be recovered from the state-owned enterprise, and on the other hand, the argumentation and how it looks in terms of possible consequences, perhaps this is not yet the end of the story, risks remain,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Commenting on commercial arbitrations against Ukraine in general, Maliuska said that he does not see the danger of making any critical decisions regarding Ukraine this year.
As reported, in 2016, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce decided to recover $250 million from Odesa-Port Side Plant in favor of Ostchem Holding Limited for the gas that the company supplied to the plant in 2013.
In March 2017, by a decision of the Yuzhny City Court, this decision was legalized on the territory of Ukraine. The validity of this decision was also recognized by the Court of Appeal of Odesa region. In July 2018, the Supreme Court reversed those decisions.
Again, Ostchem was able to achieve a positive decision for itself in the Kyiv Court of Appeal in April 2019. According to a document published in the unified register of court decisions, Odesa-Port Side Plant, in accordance with the decision of the Stockholm tribunal, had to pay Ostchem almost $193.3 million in principal and $58 million in fines.
The plant objected to the ruling made by the Ukrainian court, noting that the company had been stopped since the middle of 2018 and the implementation of the decision of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce would lead to bankruptcy and threats of a man-made and environmental disaster. In addition, the State Property Fund said that the contracts signed by plant and Ostchem are void. Odesa-Port Side Plant and the State Property Fund filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, which satisfied it in June 2021 and finally refused Ostchem to comply with the decision of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce to recover over $300 million from the plant.
Ostchem has not yet announced what action it has taken or will take following the Supreme Court’s verdict.
