The Paris Court of Appeal has ruled in favor of Moldova following a review action brought against Komstroy, successor to the Ukrainian company Energoalians. This overturns a 2013 “illegal” arbitration decision and unfreezes the accounts of the state enterprise MoldATSA, IPN reports.
An earlier journalistic investigation by RISE Moldova revealed that MoldATSA's accounts were blocked in Brussels after an arbitration court in Paris had ordered Moldova to pay Energoalians's successor a debt of 47 million dollars, including penalties, allegedly owed by another state company, Moldtranselectro, for 15 years' worth of electricity supply. Earlier, Ukrainian and Moldovan courts rejected Energoalians's claims, and the authorities in both Chisinau and Kiev confirmed that Moldtranselectro owed nothing to Energoalians.
The Moldovan Ministry of Justice has recalled in a press release today that for almost a year now all the revenues of MoldATSA have been restrained on a special account in Belgium, at the request of Komstroy.
MoldATSA, a company that manages flight traffic across Moldova, has no relation whatsoever to the electricity business, but was trapped in a legal loophole on the account that it shares the status of a state enterprise with Moldtranselectro.
The recent decision, which is final, has found that the ad-hoc arbitration court acted beyond its authority and committed serious violations.
The decision also means that the Moldovan taxpayers will not lose 593 million lei in alleged damages, plus $540,000 in court costs claimed by Komstroy.
