A Dutch court has frozen the assets of TurkStream operator South Stream Transport as part of a bid by Ukrainian businesses to recover losses stemming from Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, according to Russian media.
DTEK Krymenergo, an energy company owned by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, sought compensation in several international courts after Russian authorities seized its assets in Crimea.
In November 2023 an arbitration court in The Hague ordered Russia to pay DTEK $208 million plus interest and legal fees. Russia appealed that ruling, and the case is now before a Dutch appellate court.
According to the Russian Vedomosti newspaper, the Amsterdam District Court ordered the seizure of South Stream Transport’s assets in July as part of DTEK’s efforts to enforce the compensation. The value of the assets frozen was not disclosed.
DTEK had sought the freeze on the grounds that South Stream Transport’s interests were closely tied to Gazprom, which owns a controlling stake in the pipeline operator. South Stream Transport appealed the ruling in August, arguing that it operates independently of the Russian state, Vedomosti reported.
South Stream Transport was originally created to build the South Stream natural gas pipeline beneath the Black Sea, a project that was scrapped after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. The company later turned to constructing the TurkStream pipeline, which was completed in 2020.
TurkStream is a natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Turkey. The pipeline has two lines with a total capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters a year. The first line supplies Turkey and the second line allows the transport of natural gas further, to South East and Central Europe.