Energy, Legislation, Lithuania, Oil, Transport

The company Klaipedos Nafta announced on the acceptance of the claim and on provision of counterclaim in the case on April 20, 2011, and July 5, 2011, respectively, by notifying the notifications on material event.

The court decided: to admit that the agreement was terminated through the fault of the company; to award Naftos Grupe damages in amount of 9,744,590.67 litas, six-percent annual interest on the awarded amount for the period from the initiation of the legal proceedings (April 18, 2011) till full enforcement of the court judgement, the stamp duty in the amount of 17,235 litas, and the legal expenses in the amount of 25,000 litas to be paid by the company; to reject the counterclaim of the company against Naftos Grupe for invalidation of the agreement, indemnification for damages and unjust enrichment.

In the opinion of the management of the company, this judgement of the Vilnius Regional Court is unlawful and unreasonable in its part on rejection of the counterclaim and on partly satisfying the requests of the claim inter alia for the reasons that according to it the court did not take into consideration the opinions of the state institutions (the National Audit Office and the Competition Council) regarding separate provisions of the Agreement and possible breaches of the applicable legal acts, as well as that Naftos Grupe did not justify the amount of allegedly non-received income due to termination of the agreement. The company had terminated this obviously economically disadvantageous agreement in order to secure the best interests of the company's shareholders.

The above-indicated judgement of the Vilnius Regional Court may be appealed against with the Court of Appeal of Lithuania within 30 days after its announcement and the company is going to file its appeal within the established time limit.