
Komaksavia Airport Invest, the Chisinau Airport concessionaire, will pay compensation to the government in the amount of 216.6 thousand euros.
This was announced at a government meeting on Wednesday by the head of the Ministry of Justice, Sergiu Litvinenco. According to him, on August 3, the Arbitration Court of the Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm (Sweden) rejected the lawsuit of Komaksavia Airport Invest against Moldova. At the same time, the court ruled that the company should pay the government of Moldova 216.67 thousand euros as compensation for the costs incurred in connection with the arbitration procedure. The Minister recalled that on May 15, 2020, Komaksavia applied to the Arbitration Court with a demand to oblige Moldova to continue the execution of the concession agreement in respect of assets managed by the Chisinau International Airport state enterprise and adjacent territories. Alternatively, Komaksavia demanded that the government pay €883.7 million in compensation to the company for the expropriation of the proposed investment under the concession agreement. According to Litvinenco, the court rejected these requests by Komaksavia and ruled that the company did not invest in the assets of the Chisinau airport. Herewith, the Court of Arbitration ordered Komaksavia to cover Moldova's expenses for arbitration fees in the amount of 422.5 thousand euros. Recall that Avia Invest in August 2013 received a concession from Chisinau Airport for a period of 49 years. For 7 years, the company has changed owners several times, the last of which was Komaksavia Airport Invest Ltd. In 2020, the Moldovan authorities decided to terminate the airport concession contract due to the concessionaire's failure to fulfill its contractual obligations, in particular, investments in the first and second stages. In addition, the company did not provide a guarantee of the proper fulfillment of its investment obligations in the amount of 1 million euros. However, Komaksavia Airport Invest Ltd went to court. Subsequently, the Stockholm Arbitration prohibited the termination of the Chisinau Airport concession contract until the final decision on the claim against Moldova and prohibited any execution of the notice of termination of the concession sent to Avia Invest.// 03.08.2022 — InfoMarket.