KomaksAvia Airport Invest Ltd filed a lawsuit November 11 with the Swedish Court of Appeals against the August 3 arbitration decision against Moldova.
According to the report, the company's attorneys presented evidence of a superficial and unlawful arbitration decision based on assumptions and apparent political aspects of the dispute. "The arguments in the appeal convincingly show that in the proceedings, Moldova's position and the so-called 'evidence' of its representative are based on assumptions and on unreliable information, often simply taken from the mass media," KomaksAvia Airport Invest Ltd has said. They repeatedly drew attention to the fact that the decision of the Arbitration Court does not terminate, change or affect the existence of the concession agreement. "We emphasize that the Stockholm Arbitration Court did not consider the essence of the dispute, but only procedural issues of admissibility of the claim under the Convention on Mutual Protection of Investments between Moldova and Cyprus. The Republic of Moldova has avoided by all means to consider the merits of the case, realizing that such a development is fraught with the risk of losing the case," KomaksAvia Airport Invest Ltd. Let us remind that in August 2013 the company Avia Invest obtained a concession to Chisinau airport for 49 years. Over the past 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 non-fulfillment by the concessionaire of its contractual obligations, in particular investments on the first and the second stages. In addition, the company failed to provide a guarantee for proper performance of its investment obligations in the amount of 1 million euros. However, KomaksAvia Airport Invest Ltd went to court. Subsequently, the Stockholm Arbitration Court banned termination of the Chisinau airport concession contract until a final decision on the lawsuit against Moldova and prohibited any execution of the notice of termination of concession, sent to Avia Invest. Subsequently, the head of the Ministry of Justice, Sergiu Litvinenco, said that on August 3 this year the Arbitration Court of the Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm (Sweden) has rejected the claim of KomaksAvia Airport Invest against Moldova. The court ruled that the company should pay to the Moldovan government 216,67 thousand euros as compensation for the expenses incurred during the arbitration procedure. The minister recalled that KomaksAvia had applied to the Court on May 15, 2020. KomaksAvia has requested the Arbitration Court to oblige Moldova to continue executing the concession agreement on the assets managed by the state enterprise Chisinau International Airport and the adjacent territories. As an alternative, KomaksAvia demanded that the government pay the company compensation in the amount of 883.7 million euros for expropriation of the alleged investments under the concession agreement. According to Litvinenco, the court rejected these requests by KomaksAvia and ruled that the company had not invested in Chisinau airport assets. At the same time, the Arbitration Court ordered KomaksAvia to cover 422.5 thousand euro arbitration fee expenses of Moldova. While commenting on the Stockholm Arbitration Court ruling and the press release of the Moldovan Ministry of Justice, KomaksAvia Airport Invest Ltd (Cyprus) announced that the procedural decision to withdraw the claim is an interim one and will be appealed in a higher court in Sweden. As noted, there are no "findings" or "decisions" that the company has not proved its case against Moldova, simply because it has not yet reached the court. "In this arbitration or in another, but it will be considered sooner or later. We emphasize that the Stockholm Arbitration has not considered the essence of the dispute, but only procedural questions of admissibility of the claim under the convention on mutual protection of investments between Moldova and Cyprus," reads the statement of KomaksAvia Airport Inves Ltd. At the same time, the director of the Public Property Agency, Eugeniu Cozonac, said recently that the state has a great chance to get back the Chisinau airport under its management. He claims that after the decision of the Stockholm Court, which rejected the lawsuit filed by KomaksAvia against Moldova, there will be no other court that would make a different decision. Regarding Avia Invest's claim that it invested hundreds of millions in the capital's airport, he stressed that it was shown in the arbitration that KomaksAvia founder was not a bona fide investor and, moreover, the contract was terminated because Avia Invest had not fulfilled its contractual obligations to make the investment, as provided in the contract. // 14.11.2022 – InfoMarket
