The Paris Court of Appeal on Tuesday, 10 January, delivered a final judgment annulling the ad hoc arbitral tribunal’s award of 25 October 2013 in the case of SPC Stileks, successor in rights to LLC Komstroy and LLC Energoalliance of Ukraine, against Moldova, Justice Minister Sergiu Litvinenco announced.

“The Court established, in the absence of an investment protected by the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty, the lack of jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal. In addition to ordering SPC Stileks to pay the costs, the Court of Appeal also ordered the payment of €250,000 in other costs to Moldova,” the minister said.

By the award of the ad hoc arbitral tribunal in Paris, France, of 25 October 2013, the amount of almost 593 million lei and 540 thousand dollars was ordered to be recovered from the account of the Republic of Moldova in favour of LLC Energoalliance, now SPC Stileks. The case concerned the alleged non-payment of electricity supplied by Moldtranselectro S.A. for the period 1999-2000.

ZdG previously wrote that the company “Komstroy”, with which Moldova was sued, previously had as founders Dmitry Sarnațki and the Ukrainian company “Avtosila”. Sarnatsky was in turn a business partner with Ukrainian Vitali Podveshevskii in the Transbud company. Podveshevskii also owned 50% of Avtosila LLC, only in Russia, and the Ukrainian cooperative Evans, which had the same phone number as Jet Business Limited, a Ukrainian company founded by Veaceslav Platon. The same phone number was also used in an advertisement placed on Ukrainian websites selling a luxury Land Rover car for almost €50,000. Vitali Podveshevskii was also one of the Ukrainian shareholders of Moldindconbank, a Moldovan financial institution, with a 4.33% stake, being a partner of the same Platon.