KIEV, July 22. /TASS/. The Ukrainian companies that have lost their property in Crimea after the Black Sea peninsula’s reintegration into Russia may claim a total of $2 billion from Moscow, ex-Governor of the Dnipropetrovsk Region, billionaire businessman Igor Kolomoisky said on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian oligarch declined to comment in detail on the intention of PrivatBank, part of Kolomoisky’s Privat Group empire, to file a relevant lawsuit against Russia to The Hague Tribunal.
"I don’t want to comment on anything [on The Hague Tribunal]. I believe lawsuits from all various structures and not only from PrivatBank will total about $2 billion," he said in reply to a question put by a TASS correspondent.
In Kolomoisky’s opinion, this is a small sum.
"Compared with Yukos [once Russia’s largest oil company], this is just a small sum. In their place [if I were in place of Russia], I would pay it out so as not to engage in litigation with us. They [Russians] will not even notice this meager amount," the Ukrainian oligarch said.
The lawsuits against Russia are not bound into a single package, Kolomoisky said.
"There is a certain structure and steps there. These are different lawsuits, different companies and there is no integrated lawsuit. The claims are from different legal entities, which had their property lost," Kolomoisky said.
In July 2014, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague passed a ruling obliging Russia to pay $50 billion compensation to former Yukos shareholders who claimed $100 billion from Moscow.
In its final awards, the arbitration tribunal ruled that Russia "had taken measures with the effect equivalent to an expropriation of claimants’ investments in Yukos and thus had breached the Energy Charter Treaty."
Russia, which signed but did not ratify the Energy Charter Treaty, has repeatedly said it categorically disagrees with the Hague tribunal’s ruling.