Russian court orders $1.2 bln of Linde UK assets be frozen
MOSCOW, Aug 14 (Reuters) - A Russian court has ordered that assets worth around $1.15 billion of a British subsidiary of German industrial gases company Linde be frozen in a dispute over a gas processing plant, court filings showed on Wednesday.
RusChemAlliance, which filed the lawsuit, is a joint venture 50% owned by Russia's Gazprom GAZP.MM. RusChemAlliance has filed several other suits against European banks over the construction of a gas processing plant in Russia with Germany's Linde, which was terminated due to Western sanctions.
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RusChemAlliance had asked the Court of Arbitration of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region to impose interim measures by freezing assets belonging to the subsidiary, Linde Russia UK Limited, worth 746 million euros ($820.7 million) and 30.7 billion roubles ($333.3 million).
Linde did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The claimant argued that freezing assets was necessary as Western sanctions would make it impossible to enforce a future judgement in a jurisdiction that Russia considers "unfriendly", and that Linde was trying to withdraw its assets from Russian territory, the filings show.
RusChemAlliance also argued that Linde companies did not have sufficient assets inside Russia to enforce a judgement.
In January 2023, the same court ordered nearly $500 million of Linde's assets be frozen.
The court accepted RusChemAlliance's claim, determining that the British subsidiary's claim rights over several gas plants on Russian territory be frozen, as well as funds in the company's bank accounts, securities and real estate.
In 2021, Linde and Renaissance Heavy Industries signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Gazprom and its partners for the Ust-Luga gas complex.
Linde notified the customer in May and June 2022 that it had suspended work under the contract due to European Union sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
RusChemAlliance has alleged that EU sanctions ban supplying equipment for the liquefied natural gas plant but do not cover equipment required for the other part of the Ust-Luga complex - a gas processing plant.
($1 = 92.1000 roubles)
($1 = 0.9090 euros)
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Mark Potter)