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Fieldfisher has secured an award for more than £3,000,000 legal costs on behalf of its Cypriot-based clients, Littop Enterprises Limited, Bridgemont Ventures Limited and Bordo Management Limited, the Claimants, following a successful London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) hearing against Ukrainian state-owned entity, NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy (Naftogaz), the Respondent, in which the validity of an SHA, entered into between the parties, was confirmed.
The Claimants' ultimate beneficial owners are, amongst others, Messrs Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov.
The eminent Tribunal, consisting of former Supreme Court judges, Lord Collins and Lord Philips and David Owen QC, ordered Naftogaz to pay 75% of the Claimants' legal costs following the Claimants' success in LCIA Arbitration No 15083 (as reported in Global Arbitration Review on 2 May 2018).
All of Naftogaz' costs are for its own account.
In reaching its decision, the Tribunal took into account, among other things, the parties' relative success and failure in the award or under different issues and considered the "successful party" to be the "the party which won the proceedings as a whole". On this basis, the Tribunal accepted the Claimants' position that:
"The Claimants obtained the result they had sought, and Naftogaz failed to obtain the result it sought. The Tribunal decided that it has jurisdiction to hear the claims under the SHA's arbitration clause, and refused to declare the SHA as a whole void or unenforceable."
Simon Sloane (lead partner) and Arik Aslanyan (client partner) stated:
"Our clients are delighted with this costs award which is vindication of their efforts to protect their interests against Ukraine's attempts to denude the value of their investments in Ukrnafta JSC.
"Hopefully this defeat, which follows Fieldfisher's success in the English High court last week dismissing a WFO against Mr Kolomoisky, will compel Ukraine to stop its illegal and politically-motivated harassment of our clients' investments in Ukraine."
The Fieldfisher team in the LCIA arbitration was led by Simon Sloane, and included Arik Aslanyan, Mikhail Basisty, Andrew Sanderson, Toby Redgrave, Reeta Gill, Josh Fellenbaum, Sonia Morton, Sergey Okoev, Alesia Tsiabus, Oleksandr Zelenyi, Galina Rivkina, Anastasia Lutsenko, Mila Kovalenko, Michael McDonagh, Alao Habibah and Irina Dimitrova.
About Fieldfisher
Fieldfisher is a European law firm with market leading practices in many of the world's most dynamic sectors. We are an exciting, forward-thinking organisation with a particular focus on energy & natural resources, technology, finance & financial services, life sciences and media.
Our network has more than 1,450 people working across 24 offices providing highly commercial advice based on an in-depth understanding of our clients' needs.
Our arbitration specialists are spread across all our offices and are regularly involved in high-value domestic and international arbitrations, involving a wide range of industries.
We operate across our offices in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Beijing, Belfast, Birmingham, Bologna, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Guangzhou, Hamburg, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Munich, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Turin, Venice and Silicon Valley.
Fieldfisher is currently Law Firm of the Year - Legal Business Awards 2018.