Roscosmos requires payment of funds frozen by France in the Yukos case
The Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities refuses to supply Soyuz carrier rockets to the French company Arianespace because of non-payment of 300 million euros. These assets have been blocked by a French court in connection with the Yukos case, the French edition of Les Echos wrote on Friday, October 28th.
"We do not get money from Arianespace for our work. No money, no product. We cannot work for free," Les Echos stated, quoting the press service of Roscosmos. The said amount was seized at the request of the former shareholders of Yukos, requiring execution of the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague from July 2014 that stated that Russia should pay former Yukos shareholders compensation amounting to $50 billion.
Previously, the General Director of Roscosmos, Igor Komarov, sent a letter to French Prime Minister Manuel Valls in which he claimed a violation of a bilateral agreement on protection of investments by France and demanded to settle the dispute on the payment of receivables by Arianespace within six months.
The decision was reversed, but continued to be in effect. The decision of the Arbitration Court was then later revoked by the District Court of The Hague, which gave grounds for unfreezing Russian assets abroad. However, the trial for the release of 300 million euros, owed to Roscosmos on contracts with Arianespace, was set by a French court for April 19, 2017.
Russian Soyuz rockets are used by the French company to launch navigation satellites into orbit for the Galileo project.