16 December 2016, Friday, 14:17 108

Gazprom Challenges Decision To Collect Antimonopoly Committee's UAH 172 Billion Penalty From It At Kyiv Economic Court Of Appeal

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Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom has filed an appellate appeal before the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeal against the Economic Court of Kyiv's December 5 decision that satisfied the claim filed by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine involving recovery of UAH 172 billion of penalty and late fees from Gazprom poses new risks for the reliability and stability of transit of Russian gas through Ukraine.

Ukrainian News Agency learned this from the Court’s briefing.

January 22, the Committee on fined Gazprom UAH 85.9 million for abuse of monopoly in the gas transit market.

Gazprom was notified on the penalty payment on March 4, 2016, so it had to pay the penalty before May 4, 2016.

April 12, Gazprom challenged the Committee's decision at the Kyiv Economic Court. April 13, the Court returned the lawsuit within consideration.

Gazprom tried to challenge the Kyiv Economic Court's ruling on leaving its suit without consideration but courts of higher instances upheld lawfulness of this decision.

The Committee lodged the lawsuit for the collection of UAH 172 billion of penalty and late fees on October 5.

Late fees are calculated on basis of 1.5% of the claimed amount per overdue day (some UAH 1,289 million).

The law does not allow the amount of late fees to exceed the amount of penalty, so the Committee laid an action seeking recovery of UAH 85,966 million penalty and UAH 85,966 million late fees.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation thinks that the Economic Court of Kyiv's December 5 decision that satisfied the claim filed by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine involving recovery of UAH 172 billion of penalty and late fees from Gazprom poses new risks for the reliability and stability of transit of Russian gas through Ukraine.

The RF Ministry called upon Ukraine to cancel this decision.

Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Ihor Nasalyk believes that seizure of transit gas following the Economic Court of Kyiv's decision to recover the Antimonopoly Committee penalty from Gazprom is impossible.

The Minister also confirmed that Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman assured the European Commission that transit gas is not to be arrest by court order.