Russia's RusChemAlliance sues five European banks over aborted gas project

MOSCOW, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Russian company RusChemAlliance has filed new lawsuits against five European banks that stopped financing the construction of a gas project in Russia after the West imposed sanctions against Moscow over the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The lawsuits, all filed with St Petersburg's Arbitration Court on Sept. 16, were addressed to Italian bank UniCredit and German lenders Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank BadenWurttemberg, with no additional details given.

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RusChemAlliance and Commerzbank declined to comment. The other banks did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

RusChemAlliance, a joint venture 50% owned by Russian gas producer Gazprom, has filed several other suits against European banks after German industrial gases company Linde stopped work on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at the Baltic port of Ust-Luga in 2022.

The St Petersburg court has frozen some Linde assets in Russia and ordered that some of its assets outside Russia be frozen, too, as it tries to recoup funds lost over the gas processing plant's abrupt construction halt.

The same court has previously ordered all five banks to pay damages.

(Reporting by Alexander Marrow in London and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; additional reporting by Tom Sims and Valentina Za; editing by Jason Neely)