Court rejects Sodexim claim for $56.5 mln against MinFin
MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) - The Moscow Arbitration Court March 26 rejected a claim from LLC Sodexim for $56.5 million against the Finance Ministry, an Interfax correspondent reports from the court.
A lawyer for the plaintiff said at a previous court session that Russia was due to the company in connection with the settlement of Algeria's debt to Russia, and $24.4 million that the ministry has repaid to the company following a court order.
The defendants said they did not acknowledge the claim and that in addition, the statute of limitations had expired.
The court in November 2010 ordered the Finance Ministry to pay Sodexim a total of $43.4 million, including $24.24 million principal and $19.16 million interest.
Both lawsuits are related to the debt that Russia incurred to the company due to the settlement of Algeria's debt to Russia. The Finance Ministry has said Algeria had debt on loans that the former USSR issued. Agreement was reached in the 1990s to repay that debt in goods. Sodexim was selected to fulfill those agreements. It was supposed to sell goods received from Algeria and pay the proceeds into the budget.
Since Russia was finding it difficult to top its budget revenue up in the 1990s, it was decided that Sodexim would first pay the money and then obtain the goods.
Sodexim paid the equivalent of $26 million in rubles into the budget in 1996 - into a VEB account with the Finance Ministry. In return, Sodexim was authorized to request goods to that value from Algeria.
Algeria's debt to Russia was supposed to have been written off after the goods were supplied, but the goods were not supplied.
Russia and Algeria signed and ratified an intergovernmental agreement in 2006 that said the governments of both countries would independently resolve all financial claims by their own companies related to trade in the past.
Russia thereby undertook to settle accounts with its companies and Sodexim lost legal grounds to claim more goods from Algeria to compensate its losses.
So the company asked the Russian government to compensate the losses in 2006. It only asked for $26 million, but the interest that has accrued since 1996 raised the amount to $43.4 million.
The Finance Ministry concluded that the company's claims had grounds and, on the government's orders, drafted amendments to the 2007 budget to grant the government the right to settle the debt to Sodexim. The amount of compensation was subject to negotiation.
Deputy Russian Finance Minister Sergei Storchak, who was responsible for settling foreign debt, was arrested on November 15, 2007, and as were Viktor Zakharov, Sodexim's general director, and Vadim Volkov, president of Inter-regional Investment Bank. All were accused of attempting to misappropriate $43.4 million from the federal budget.
Storchak was held in custody until October 21, 2008, and then released with travel restrictions. Investigators closed the criminal case against Storchak at the end of January 2011.