27 December 2016, Tuesday, 11:22 144

Court On January 18 Examining Gazprom Appeal Against Judgment On Recovery Of UAH 172 Billion Antimonopoly Committee penalty

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For January 18 the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeal has scheduled the examination of the appeal Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom brought against the Kyiv Economic Court's December 5 award that satisfied the claim filed by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine involving recovery of UAH 172 billion of penalty and late fees from Gazprom (USD 6.5 billion at the current NBU exchange rate).

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

The hearing is to start at 9:40

The appeal will be considered by a bench chaired Karolina Tarasenko.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Committee on January 22 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 appeal against 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.

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.

The Committee is considering a possibility of recovering the penalty from Gazprom on foreign jurisdictions further.