site.btaInternational Arbitration Court Rules NEK to Pay EUR 550 Mln to Atomstroyexport for Belene N-plant Equipment

International Arbitration Court Rules NEK to Pay EUR 550 Mln to Atomstroyexport for Belene N-plant Equipment

Sofia, June 16 (BTA) - The International Court of Arbitration (ICA) in Paris has adjudged that Bulgaria's National Electricity  Company (NEK) pay Atomstroyexport 550 million euro for the equipment of Belene N-plant, it emerged at an extraordinary news conference of Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova on Thursday.

The claim of the Russian company is for 1.2 billion euro.

The decision for Belene can be called objective as it is logical to pay for what has been ordered, Petkova said. What is important is that NEK will pay only for already manufactured equipment, not loss of earnings, damages, escalation or fines, as requested by Atomstroyexport, Petkova commented.

The judgment is yet to be served officially to NEK according to the procedure, Petkova said, specifying that it was received as an e-mail at NEK Wednesday evening. NEK intends to acquaint itself in detail with all circumstances and arrange a meeting with Atomstroyexport so that the two companies clarify their
positions and find mutually advantageous solutions.

One reactor has been made and the second has not been completed, NEK has concluded from the arbitrage judgment, Petkova said. After NEK analyses the judgment and on site check at the plants should be made to see at what stage the equipment is and what NEK should actually acquire.

The project for the construction of Belene N-plant was abandoned by decisions of the government and the Parliament in February 2013.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov told journalists that he is satisfied with the judgment. After that Bulgaria and the Russians may sell the equipment to third parties or build a plant, but before that there should be consultations with the European Commission.

ICA's decision is entirely in favour of Bulgaria, the Chairman of the parliamentary Energy Committee, Delyan Dobrev said. He noted that the sum which Bulgaria has to pay includes only unpaid invoices, which NEK has not paid after 2010, plus the manufactured equipment. This was Bulgaria's offer made even in
March 2012, so that it can definitely be said that the arbitration has confirmed this country's position on the case, Dobrev said.

The decision of ICA still has not been discussed in detail and the details and sums demanded are yet to be analysed, the Ministry of Energy told BTA. The comment was requested as a result of a difference between the sums declared by Rosatom and those cited at today's news conferences by PM Borissov and Petkova. Earlier in the day TASS quoted Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom as stating that the arbitration court under the International Chamber of Commerce in Geneva made a decision in favor of Russia's Atomstroyexport in the dispute with Bulgaria's NEK to the amount of 620 million euro.