Arthur Zurabyan, head of International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution Practice of ART DE LEX, commented on the claims of Mr. Lebedev against the German firm RWE

The German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported that Leonid Lebedev, the Russian senator from the Chuvashia Oblast and owner of Rustenburg, a firm based in Cyprus and a sister firm of Sintez, is demanding EUR 875 million from Jürgen Großman, the former head of RWE, the German electric utility, for losses that Lebedev’s firm incurred in 2008, when RWE broke a contract with Sintez.

In 2008, RWE and Sintez signed a joint-venture agreement, and Sintez purchased several firms as partial fulfillment of its contract with RWE. Then, in September 2008, in part citing the worldwide financial crisis, RWE abrogated the agreement. More recently, Sinthez has experienced losses connected with its investments. 

Sintez filed a USD 1.4 billion claim in 2008 against RWE with the arbitration court in London. In 2011, reports were that Sintez was demanding EUR 675 billion from RWE. The first hearing in the current case will take place on 12 February 2015 in a court in Essen, Germany.

According to Arthur Zurabyan, the head of the Arbitration and Dispute Resolution Practice of ART DE LEX, it is likely that the Russian side will make the same appeal in the German court as it had in London, so the German court may suspend the suit until the London court issues its decision. According to Mr. Zurabyan, since there was a signed agreement with RWE, the Russian plaintiff may win the litigation because it can argue that abrogating the agreement caused it financial losses.