Moldova wins lawsuit at Paris-based Court of Appeal

Chisinau, 13 April /MOLDPRES/- The Justice Ministry has informed that Moldova won a litigation with Komstroy company, which had lasted five years. The country’s budget “was threatened to lose about 593 million lei, money claimed for the investments made, interest on them and 540,000 dollars – expenses for lawyer services and fees for arbitration court,” according to a press release by the ministry.

At a 12 April deliberative session, an application submitted by the Justice Ministry on Moldova’s case versus Komstroy company from Ukraine was accepted by the Court of Appeal from Paris (France), under which the arbitral resolution adopted on 25 October 2013 was recognized unlawful and contested by the Moldovan authorities.

According to the final decision, it was ascertained that the ad-hoc arbitration court, previously convened in the French capital, had no right to adopt the concerned decision, and serious infringements were committed while settling the litigation.

Following the decision by the Paris-based Court of Appeal, as a result of procedural actions taken, the accounts of the MoldATSA state-owned enterprise will be unlocked too. This company is in charge of directing planes overflying Moldova's airspace. For almost one year, all money received by the company (about 100 million lei) was locked in a special account in Belgium, at a request by the Ukrainian company.

In late 2015, the MoldATSA company contracted a loan amounting to 35 million lei from the Civil Aviation Authority, in order to overcome the financial crisis, which might lead to the blocking of its work.

In last September, the MoldATSA company informed about the crisis situation faced by the leading provider of Air Navigation Service of Moldova. “In April 2015, as a result of a decision by the court from Brussels within the lawsuit ''Komstroy vs Republic of Moldova'', the financial means of MoldATSA from Europe were blocked. The company had no direct or indirect relation to this case, yet, it became victim of the judicial system. Thus, the state-owned company, which is the only one competent with checking the air traffic in Moldova, remained without the main source of income, which might soon lead to the blocking of the air traffic management system”, a press release by the institution says.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor L. Alcaza)