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If the case was lost in arbitration, let’s win in the Parliament

After the award in Rosukrenergo (we followed the case in our previous posts)  case was issued against the Ukrainian respondent, Ukrainian authorities and state officials announced several options of further actions, including filing an appeal against the award issues by the arbitral tribunal of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to those measures the members of the Ukrainian Parliament invented another one.

On September 2, 2010 Verhovna Rada of Ukraine registered the draft Law “On Energy Security of Ukraine” Despite of the name showing great promise, the bill was aimed only to prohibit the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to use the money received from IMF or from the state budget for payment of the debt according to the above arbitral award. Secondly the bill contained the obligation of the Government to prohibit the NJSC “Naftogas Ukrainy” to transfer the gas that was purchased for consumers for fulfillment of the obligations of the state according to the award.

On October 20, 2010 the core Committee of Fuel and Energy issued its negative opinion on the proposed bill.

Posted by Konstantin Pilkov, MCIArb