MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Plaintiffs in the case of A321 air disaster over the Sinai Peninsula have filed a collective 1.4-billion-euro lawsuit in a Moscow court, the court’s press-service said.
"They submitted the suit today. The defendants are insurance companies Ingosstrakh and Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty, travel company Brisco, Russian air carrier Kogalymavia (operating under the brand Metrojet) and leasing company AerCap. The claims total 1.383 billion euros", the court's press secretary Emilia Khil said.
TASS has had no comments from the plaintiffs’ lawyers Anatoly Kucherena yet. Under the Russian Code of Civil Procedure the lawsuit can be accepted for consideration or rejected within five working days.
Kucherena last Tuesday said that a group of 149 defendants in the A321 disaster case would file what would become Russia’s first-ever collective lawsuit demanding a compensation from the insurance company Ingosstrakh. He explained that under Russian legislation the compensation to be paid to the relatives of air crash victims was no less than 2 million rubles, but the Montreal Convention establishes a far higher compensation equivalent to up to 9 million rubles and is applicable only to international air traffic. A flight is to be recognized as international if the airports of departure and arrival are located in the territories of the convention’s signatories. Russia jointed the Montreal Convention on August 21, 2017, and Egypt, where the tragedy occurred, has been a party to the Convention since 2005.
An A321 airliner of the Russian company Kogalymavia blew up over the Sinai Peninsula on October 31, 2015 as a result of a terrorist attack. There were 217 passengers and seven crew on board. Nobody survived.