Claims of Ukraine's Naftogaz regarding the resumption of the seizure of the Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 AG shares by a Swiss court are untrue, the court only suspended exclusion of the shares from the list of assets subject to interim measures, Russian energy giant Gazprom said in a statement.
"The statement of Ukraine's Naftogaz saying that a court of the Canton of Zug (Switzerland) has resumed the seizure of the Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 AG shares is untrue. According to the information obtained by Gazprom, on June 29, 2018, the Swiss court suspended the exclusion of the Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 AG shares from the certificates on the imposition of interim measures against Gazprom's assets in these companies," the statement read.
Naftogaz noted that the assets were previously unfrozen based solely on claims by Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 that they were located beyond Zug and thus out of legal reach of debt collectors.
The amount was announced after arbitration proceedings when Naftogaz appealed to the Arbitration Court in Stockholm to retroactively revise its 2009-2019 gas transit contract with Russia in accordance with Gazprom's new "take or pay" rule.
In February 2018, the Stockholm arbitration court ordered Gazprom to pay $2.56 billion in compensation to the Ukrainian company over the 2014 breach of contractual obligations. Gazprom appealed, and the execution of the ruling was suspended, with the suspension subsequently upheld despite a Ukrainian appeal.
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The Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute has sparked concerns in the European Union about the stability of gas transit through Ukraine. In turn, Russia has been working on building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany in order to ease reliance on Ukraine as a transit country.
