Hague arbitration court orders Russia to compensate Ukraine for assets lost in Crimea
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague has ordered Russia to pay Ukraine $159 million in compensation for the assets lost in annexed Crimea, as reported in an announcement by the TV company 1+1, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“The Arbitration Court in the Hague has determined that Russia must pay compensation to a number of Ukrainian investors for the annexation of Crimea. In this case the amount is $159 million. The court has determined that Russia is responsible for violating the rights of Ukrainian investors, as of March 21, 2014, the date when Putin signed the decrees to annex Crimea,” the report states.
Russian representatives did not attend the court session.
“Now 18 unnamed Ukrainian companies and one physical entity can count on money from Russia. Among them is the TV company Zhysa, which was part of the 1+1 media group,” the report states.
In the summer of 2017, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague confirmed its jurisdiction in the case concerning property relations in the Russian-annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Russia attempted to challenge this, but did not succeed, and subsequently proceeded to ignore the case proceedings.
The arbitration court consists of three authorized representatives. Since Russia declined to nominate its own, the Hague chose one on its behalf.
It came out in 2017 that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine had sent information to the International Criminal Court (Hague Tribunal, the Netherlands) concerning Russia’s illegal expropriation of Ukrainian private and state property in annexed Crimea. In 2016, Naftogaz filed a $2.6 billion lawsuit against Russia for Crimean assets. Similar lawsuits have also been filed at the Permanent Arbitration Court by Oshchadbank and a number of companies belonging to Ihor Kolomoyskyi.