Moldova Wins Case Over Terminated Airport Concession

Moldova has won a lawsuit filed at the Arbitration Court of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce by the offshore company from Cyprus that manages Chisinau International Airport, Komaksavia Airport Invest Ltd.

Komaksavia in 2020 demanded compensation of over 883.7 million euros after the Public Property Agency of Moldova, APP, on July 8, 2020, ended the 49-year contract for the concession of assets and land related to Chisinau International Airport.

Moldovan authorities justified the decision, saying the company had not fulfilled its investment commitments from the contract signed in 2013, which amounted in 2020 to 66.2 million euros.

"The Stockholm Court rejected these requests and ruled that Komaksavia did not make any investment in the assets of Chisinau International Airport, Justice Minister Sergiu Litvinenco said on Wednesday evening.

Komaksavia Airport Invest Ltd has a 95-per-cent stake in Avia Invest, the company that manages Chisinau Airport, concessioned in 2013 by a controversial decision by the government of former prime minister Iurie Leanca.

Before becoming the Cypriot offshore Komaksavia Airport Invest Ltd, the company was registered in Moscow until September 2016 under the name Komaksavia OOO.

The General Prosecutors Office announced at the end of last month that former Prime Minister Iurie Leanca was under criminal investigation over the airport concession case after prosecutors summoned him for hearings on July 22.

Leancă was prime minister at the time of signing the airport concession agreement.

The Avia Invest Board of Directors President was the controversial oligarch and fugitive politician Ilan Shor.

Shor was convicted in the first instance in the "grand theft of billion...