Alexey Mordashov declared war on Vietnam

Power Machines Aleksey Mordashov sues Vietnam after the TPP project was stopped due to sanctions.
31.10.2019
Forbes
Origin source
Power Machines Alexey Mordashov F 4 filed a lawsuit with the Singapore International Arbitration Center (SIAC) to recover the money spent on the Long Fu-1 thermal power plant construction project in Vietnam. This is reported by RBC with reference to two sources familiar with the fact of filing a lawsuit. A source close to Power Machines confirmed that the lawsuit was filed. The interlocutors of the publication did not disclose the amount of the claim.

The company received a contract for $ 930.7 million for the construction of Long Fu-1 in December 2014. The project was supposed to be completed in 2019, but in January 2018, Power Machines were put on the list of the US Treasury on charges of illegal deliveries of gas turbines to the Crimea. As a result, the TPP construction project was stopped due to blocking of mutual settlements. According to a source close to the company, Power Machines has repeatedly offered the Vietnamese side options for financing the continuation of the construction of thermal power plants by Russian banks, as well as the reassignment of subcontracting contracts to avoid termination.

One source noted that a lawsuit against the state-owned company Petrovietnam, which became the customer of the project, was sent in August 2019, when the Vietnamese side ignored the invitation of the Ministry of Economic Development to negotiations at the government level. A representative of the agency, which, according to sources, is in talks with the Vietnamese side, declined to comment.

In July, Power Machines CEO Timur Lipatov said that Petrovietnam refused to make contact with the company. He argued that the Vietnamese side, for unknown reasons, has left Power Machines' proposals unanswered for more than a year. According to Lipatov, before the imposition of sanctions, the share of American and suppliers related to American capital in the Vietnamese project amounted to about 30%. The press service of Petrovietnam did not respond to a request from reporters.

In its report for 2018, a Russian company recognized Vietnam's trade receivables as 15.9 billion rubles. In the same document, Power Machines for the first time allowed the contract for the construction of thermal power plants to be broken. The company representative refused to clarify whether the organization is trying to recover the entire amount through the court.

According to the partner of Paragon Advice Group Alexander Zakharov, the advantage of SIAC is the quick review of cases and the limited number of grounds for appealing court decisions. However, the expert did not rule out that Vietnam would be able to challenge the arbitration jurisdiction of the claim in the country's state court.

Earlier, Kommersant wrote that after the imposition of sanctions, Power Machines asked Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov to include on the agenda of the Russian-Vietnamese intergovernmental commission the question of revising the budget and delaying the commissioning of power units by a year and a half.

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