Naftogaz Submits Statement of Claim in Gazprom Gas Transit Arbitration

Ukraine's Naftogaz has submitted a Statement of Claim in its Gas Transit Arbitration against Gazprom.  

The Statement of Claim submitted this week to the Arbitral Tribunal under the Rules of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, follows a previous Statement of Claim against Gazprom in the Gas Supply Arbitration submitted earlier in January of this year.

Naftogaz claims that a number of provisions in the Gas Transit Contract ("Contract") between Naftogaz and Gazprom, entered into in January 2009, including the tariff (price) provisions, are invalid based on European competition law and related energy law and must be replaced pursuant to provisions in the Contract, with retroactive effect.

Naftogaz points to a December 2014 report in which the Energy Community Secretariat concluded that the Contract may be considered as incompliant with European competition and energy law.

As a consequence of the claims for amendment of the tariff,  Naftogaz also submitted a claim for compensation for underpayment of transit, to recover losses suffered at least since 2010, and for underdeliveries of gas under the Contract based on Gazprom's violations of its volume commitments.

Naftogaz's monetary claims related to the transit contract amount to more than 10 billion USD with total monetary claims related to both transit and supply contract exceeding 16 billion USD.