MOSCOW, September 24. /TASS/. The Court of Arbitration of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has accepted for hearing a new suit by RusChemAlliance (the operator of the project for the construction of a gas processing and liquefaction complex in Ust-Luga in Russia’s Leningrad Region) against the German bank Landesbank, according to arbitration cases database.
The court will consider the Russian company’s suit against Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg on October 16.
On September 16, RusChemAlliance filed new suits against Unicredit Bank GmbH, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg.
Earlier, RusChemAlliance managed to recover a total of over 1.1 bln euros from those banks.
In May and June 2022, Linde notified RusChemAlliance about the suspension of work under the contract (it acted as an EPC contractor and supplied part of equipment as part of implementation of the complex in Ust-Luga) due to sanctions imposed by the EU.
Since works on Linde’s part never resumed, RusChemAlliance terminated the contract with the German company and sent it a claim regarding the existence of a dispute. At the same time, a number of banks were also unable to fulfill their obligations to RusChemAlliance and pay bank guarantees due to sanctions. After this, RusChemAlliance filed claims for recovery against Unicredit Bank AG, Bayerische Landesbank, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg totally worth over 1.1 bln euro.
Later, the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region fully satisfied the claim of RusChemAlliance against Linde and its structures for a total amount of about 113 bln rubles. The court also partially satisfied the claim of RusChemAlliance to prohibit Linde from initiating and continuing legal proceedings abroad.