KIEV, September 21. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Supreme Court has turned down Gazprom’s appeal against a $3.4 antitrust fine, according to the court order published on the Single State Register of Ukraine’s court decisions on Wednesday.
"A rejection on allowing the case to proceed to Ukraine’s Supreme Court has been handed down, the ruling is final," the document stated. According to the order, it was passed on September 13 and is not subject to appeal. Thus, all court instances have rejected Gazprom's fine appeal.
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Ukraine’s Anti-Monopoly Committee fined Gazprom 85.966 billion hryvnia (about $3.4 billion) on January 22 "for the abuse of the monopoly position" on the market of natural gas transit through the Ukrainian gas transportation system in 2009-2015.
According to First Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Anti-Monopoly Committee Maria Nizhnik, Gazprom pointed out during the case examination that the Anti-Monopoly Committee had no competence to consider this issue and the matter should be examined at the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Sweden.
The Russian gas giant said it didn’t intend to fulfil the decision by the Anti-Monopoly Committee on the imposition of the penalty and would challenge it.
The notice of the decision taken by the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine was sent to Gazprom on February 12. The notice required that Gazprom should fulfil the committee’s decision within two months and bring the terms of natural gas transit via the Ukrainian gas transportation system to an economically substantiated level.
On April 13, the Kiev Commercial Court returned Gazprom’s claim against the 85.966 billion hryvnia penalty without examining it. The Kiev Commercial Court said that it had returned Gazprom’s claim due to its improper formalization, namely, the gas giant had failed to provide proofs of the powers vested in the person who had signed the claim.
On May 18, the Kiev Commercial Court of Appeal denied Gazprom’s complaint about the refusal by a lower judicial authority to examine the company’s lawsuit against the imposition of the penalty.