Parisian court orders Novatek subsidiary to pay out over 20 mln euros to French company Elengy under LNG transshipment contract - media
MOSCOW. July 15 (Interfax) - The Commercial Court of Paris has ordered for Novatek's Singapore subsidiary to pay out over 20.2 million euros of debt and interest to French energy company Elengy Hub & Expertise under a liquefied natural gas (LNG) transshipment contract, newspaper Kommersant reported, as the court refused to recognize EU sanctions as force majeure circumstances exempting the Novatek subsidiary from minimum monthly payments, it follows from the court ruling.
The dispute was in relation to a contract signed in 2015 between French Elengy S.A. and Swiss NOVATEK Gas&Power GmbH. The parties to the contract subsequently changed, as Elengy's rights and obligations were transferred to Elengy Hub&Expertise in 2016, and the Swiss company was replaced by Singapore-based NOVATEK Gas&Power Asia Pte. Ltd. in 2018. According to the conditions of the contract, NOVATEK had been allocated 33 slots for gas transshipment at Elengy's port terminals in France, without storage between shipments. The contract stipulated minimum monthly payments of around 1.5 million euros for this service, even if the capacities reserved were not actually used.
In April 2025, after the 14th package of EU sanctions on the transshipment of Russian LNG entered into force, NOVATEK Gas&Power Asia terminated these payments, invoking the force majeure clause. Elengy did not agree with this stance and filed a lawsuit against the company in the Commercial Court of Paris, stating that the EU regulations did not constitute an absolute ban and still allowed for the transshipment of exports to EU countries providing the competent authorities gave permission.
The sanctions in question were introduced in June 2024, but an extension until March 26, 2025 was also granted for the execution of contracts signed before June 25, 2024. They allowed governments of member states to permit transshipment services for Russian LNG providing they are necessary for transportation to EU member states and will be used to supply them with energy.
The court ruled in support of the complainant and said that transactions before the end of 2026 had not been ruled out fully - NOVATEK did not prove it had attempted to obtain permission for transshipment, nor did it prove it would be potentially unable to obtain it. The court also said that the company had ceased to request slots as early as July 2024, before the sanctions were imposed, and reduced transshipment volumes systematically from 20 operations in 2022 to six in 2024. As a result, the court declared that NOVATEK had failed to prove the impossibility of meeting its contractual obligations.
