KIEV, September 22. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee is going to to court in the near future to demand payment of the penalty worth 85.966 bln hryvnia ($3.4 bln under the current exchange rate) from Russia’s Gazprom, head of the committee Yury Terentyev said.
"As of today the committee has not received from Gazprom neither documents confirming the payment of penalty that was imposed by the decision of the committee nor the information about meeting the mandatory part of the decision. In the near future the committee will file a lawsuit to court demanding the company to pay the penalty and to meet the obligations under the decision," he said as quoted by the Apostrof edition.
On January 22, Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee decided to fine Gazprom for about $ 3.4 bln "for the abuse of dominant position on the natural gas transit market with the use of the main pipelines on the territory of Ukraine in 2009-2015.
Terentyev said then that the fine should be paid in two months.
Since April 2016, Gazprom has consistently tried to challenge the penalty of the committee in Ukrainian courts of all instances. On April 13, the Kiev Economic Court returned the claim of the Russian company, leaving it without consideration. On May 18, the Kiev Economic Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of Gazprom.
Subsequently, Gazprom’s claim was rejected by the Supreme Economic Court of the country and the company appealed to the highest court - the Supreme Court of Ukraine. On September 13, the court refused to open the proceedings, arguing that the submitted application "is not grounded by the evidence presented."
Commenting the committee’s decision on imposing fine, Gazprom’s official representative Sergey Kupriyanov called it "strange", as the company does not work in Ukraine.