Interfax-Ukraine citing Mr Liudmyla Momot the Supreme Court press secretary as saying that the Supreme Court of Ukraine on November 24 a cassation appeal by Naftogaz Ukrainy and upheld rulings by lower courts concerning a Stockholm Arbitration Tribunal ruling obliging Naftogaz to return natural gas to RosUkrEnergo.

The case was considered by a panel of judges chaired by Mr Vasyl Humeniuk.

Naftogaz press service declined to comment on the progress of this case.

As reported, Swiss gas trader RosUkrEnergo filed a lawsuit at the Stockholm Arbitration Tribunal which on June 8th 2010 issued a ruling obliging Naftogaz to return 11 billion cubic meters of natural gas to RosUkrEnergo as well as pay contractual penalties totaling 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas. Prior to that, the arbitration tribunal ruled that Naftogaz should pay USD 197 million to RosUkrEnergo as settlement of disputes between the companies in 2008.

RosUkrEnergo later filed appeals in the Ukrainian courts in order to enforce the Stockholm ruling. Naftogaz estimates its spending on the settlement of a dispute with Swiss based natural gas trader RosUkrEnergo at UAH 9.6 billion and hopes that RosUkrEnergo will return USD 1.7 billion worth of its debt assigned under a contract with Russia Gazprom in 2009.

(Sourced from Interfax-Ukraine)