DUSHANBE, October 17, 2013, Asia-Plus — The world’s largest aluminum company says it has won $275 million in damages from Tajikistan’s largest enterprise.
According to Eurasianet, Moscow-based Rusal said in an emailed statement on October 16 that a Swiss tribunal had found the Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO) in breach of two 2003 agreements with Rusal subsidiary Hamer Investing, Ltd. Under those agreements, Hamer had supplied TALCO raw materials for which the state-run Tajik company had failed to pay. The tribunal ordered TALCO to pay damages in excess of $112 million, approximately $147 million in interest, and almost $15 million in legal fees, the Rusal statement said.
The statement also said the tribunal had thrown out TALCO’s $400 million counterclaim, in which the company argued that Hamer’s original contracts should be deemed invalid as they had been won by corrupt means.
Rusal “intends to make every effort to enforce the award in all relevant jurisdictions in the event that TALCO does not voluntarily comply with the award,” the statement said.
TALCO spokesman Igor Sattarov said the Russian giant had broken a confidentiality agreement. He suggested that TALCO could appeal since, “according to international norms, the [legal] procedure is quite long and provides for a few more stages” – including a hearing in a Tajik court.
