{"id":937,"date":"2009-04-13T12:30:46","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T17:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/digest\/?p=937"},"modified":"2010-08-09T15:11:52","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T19:11:52","slug":"russian-authorities-order-foreign-company-to-pay-damages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2009\/04\/russian-authorities-order-foreign-company-to-pay-damages\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Authorities Order Foreign Company to Pay Damages"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

A court in Russia ruled in February against Telenor, a Norwegian telecom company, in favor of a Russian mobile-phone company, Vimpelcom. <\/span>The court held that Telenor had caused Vimpelcom a loss of $1.7 billion when it delayed the company\u2019s move into the Ukranian market. <\/span>As a result, the court froze Telenor\u2019s 29.9% stake in Vimpelcom and now Russian authorities are ordering Telenor to pay the $1.7 billion in damages or risk losing its stake all together. <\/span>If Telenor refuses, Russian bailiffs can sell their stake to pay the damages.<\/p>\n

Telenor believes the order is simply a legal pressure tactic from the Russian company Alfa Group which owns 44% of Vimpelcom, and states that it will not pay the damages. <\/span>Instead, the company plans to appeal the order in the Moscow Arbitration Court. <\/span>The Norwegian government has also sought help from Moscow since they themselves own 54% of Telenor. <\/span>However, talks between the Norwegian and Russian government have had little success. <\/span>Russian officials have stated that they will not intervene in a private dispute.<\/p>\n

Many argue that the current case is not without precedent in Alfa\u2019s track record. <\/span>The company has been described as \u201caggressive\u201d and a U.S. judge referred to Alfa\u2019s \u201chistory of \u2018vexatious and collusive\u2019 litigation and failure to comply with court orders\u201d in his ruling against the company. <\/span>There is also growing fear among foreign investors that the global financial crisis has worsened Russia\u2019s already unfavorable legal environment. <\/span>Investors are concerned that powerful Russian businesses will use their local leverage to abuse the rights of their foreign partners.<\/p>\n

For more information, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A court in Russia ruled in February against Telenor, a Norwegian telecom company, in favor of a Russian mobile-phone company, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digest","tag-europe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZu3S-f7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}