The state has a great chance to return Chisinau airport under its management - the Public Property Agency (APP).
This was stated in an interview with Ziarul de Gardă by APP director Eugeniu Cozonac. According to him, after the decision of the Stockholm Court, which rejected the lawsuit of Komaksavia against Moldova, there will not be another court that would make a different decision. "The dispute over the concession agreement for the Chisinau airport property is in the Court of Appeal, which will take the final decision and it will have legal force, and after the court decision, we will be able to get the property back. If the decision is in favor of the state, there is a company called Chisinau International Airport, which is operating, it has employees, a budget and this company will take over the management of the airport," said Eugeniu Cozonac. Referring to what Avia Invest said about the hundreds of millions of investments in the capital's airport, he stressed that it was demonstrated in the arbitration that the founder of Komaksavia is not a bona fide investor and, moreover, the contract was terminated because Avia Invest failed to fulfill its contractual obligations to make investments in the manner prescribed in the contract. "There is no other court after the arbitration in Stockholm. There is no appeal mechanism. Even after the Court of Appeal, the decision should have legal force," explained Eugeniu Cozonac. When asked if the state has a good chance to get back the Chisinau airport, he replied, "The contract is very simple: they were supposed to make investments every investment year, but they did not do it. They did not fulfill their obligations." As a reminder, Avia Invest obtained a 49-year concession for Chisinau Airport in August 2013. Over 7 years, the company 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 the final decision on the lawsuit against Moldova and prohibited any execution of the notice of termination of concession, sent to Avia Invest. Later, 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 territory. As an alternative, Komaksavia demanded that the government pay the company 883.7 million euros in compensation 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. 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 ruling to withdraw the claim is interim and will be appealed to 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 another, the case will be considered sooner or later. 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," reads the statement of Komaksavia Airport Investments Ltd. As for the alleged lack of investment, Komaksavia Airport Invest pointed out that there were no such findings, and the arbitration only concluded that the investments made did not meet the specific criteria of the Convention between Moldova and Cyprus on the protection of investments, and nothing more. And on that basis, the arbitration terminated the dispute and did not declare a win for Moldova. Komaksavia Airport Inves Ltd said that the position of the Ministry of Justice of Moldova is a manipulation of public opinion. "The state's strategy of defending "according to the procedure of the case" and not "according to the essence of the case" is just a break in the dispute, but not the end of it. There is no question of terminating the concession agreement. Since Moldova has decided not to bring the case to a full trial in the Arbitration of Stockholm, and withdraw the claim "according to procedure," Komaksavia Airport Invest will continue its defense in other international tribunals. If the tribunal considered that the investments made in 2014-2020 did not fall under the terms of one of the existing conventions in the world, it does not mean that the investment did not take place in the form of a contract. Every passenger sees everything with his own eyes. And let us remind you at least that the investment is confirmed by the Protocol of the State Commission for Concession Monitoring, which has full legal force so far. Komaksavia Airport Invest qualifies this decision as unfounded and politically motivated," the company said in a statement. // 07.11.2022 – InfoMarket
