Fennovoima starts arbitration proceedings against Rosatom
THE COURT Fennovoima’s failed nuclear power project has started.
Joachim SpechtCEO of Fennovoima told Last weekend, Helsingin Sanomat started arbitration proceedings against the Russian state-owned atomic energy company Rosatom, which was selected as the plant supplier.
The case is connected to numerous controversies, the central one being Fennovoima’s 800 million euro down payment to Rosatom’s Finnish subsidiary Raos Project. Specht revealed that the company has presented a total of nearly two billion euros in damages claims in the arbitration procedure.
Fennovoima stated in its annual report last year that it has almost EUR 200 million in unpaid interest receivables from Rosatom.
Rosatom has also threatened lawsuits, claiming that its plant supplier contract was illegally terminated. Specht told Helsingin Sanomat that Rosatom has not yet resorted to legal action, but estimates that it is “very likely”.
Fennovoima is therefore facing a protracted legal dispute, the risks of which total several billion euros. The dispute is also relevant for ordinary citizens, because many municipal energy companies have invested in Fennovoima. At worst, the recent collapse of an energy project could weaken utilities’ ability to pay dividends or force them to raise prices.
Finnish company terminated its facility supplier agreement with Rosatom in April, about two months after Russia invaded Ukraine. It cited repeated delays and other problems rather than the war as grounds for dismissal. Rosatom has attributed the delays to a strictly political decision and maintains that early hiccups had been overcome and the project was moving in the right direction.
Specht revealed to Helsingin Sanomat that Rosatom had warned Fennovoima about further delays earlier this year.
“We were informed of the risk of several years of delays. It was included in their project plans. This was one of the reasons why we had to stop the project,” he said.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT