ASCOM group head Anatol Stati demands us$1.5 billion from ex-president Voronin
The Moldova Prosecutor General's Office has initiated a criminal lawsuit against ex-president Vladimir Voronin on the demand filed by Ascom Grup president Anatol Stati, who has claimed that Voronin must compensate the damage he had inflicted to him to an amount of US$1.55 billion.
On Thursday, Ascom Grup press secretary Vitalie Diaconu convened a news conference in Infotag and explained that the reason of starting the legal action was the letter, which the then-President Vladimir Voronin sent to President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on October 6, 2008.
In the letter, Voronin warned his Kazakhstan colleague about possible problems and hazards that might come from Moldovan businessman Anatol Stati, whose companies were successfully working in the oil industry of Kazakhstan then.
At the news conference, journalists were shown a Xerox copy of Voronin's letter, saying that the profits from the Kazakhstan oil wealth were used by Anatol Stati for investment in territories that were under international community sanctions such as e.g. the United Nations sanctions imposed on South Sudan.
Voronin further wrote in the letter that Anatol Stati used to finance political formations that were strongly oppositional to the incumbent Moldovan authorities [the then Communist government].
Now the Ascom Grup is saying that Voronin's appeal, "unprecedented for a head of state", had led to a situation so adverse for the corporation. Namely, on President Nazarbayev's order, the Kazakhstan law enforcement undertook a whole number of all-out checks and inspections, some of which led to administrative and even criminal legal proceedings. As a result, the immovable and movable material property of Stati's companies of TolkynNefteGaz and KazPolmunai were confiscated, and the company's activities were suspended. The directors of these companies, who are nationals of Moldova, were put into custody.
On June 17, 2009 the Kazakhstan National Tax Inspectorate demanded through the court that the said two Stati companies must repay nearly US$1 billion as a compensation for "unlawful entrepreneurial activities to exploit trans-continental oil pipelines".
Ascom Grup vice president Artur Lungu explained that the two Moldovan companies had a Kazakhstan license permitting them to use the pipelines.
"But the purely infrastructural pipelines of TolkynNefteGaz and KazPolmunai were arbitrarily upgraded to the level of trans-continental lines, which magic transformation provided legal grounds to accuse the Moldovan companies of illicit entrepreneurial activities.
The criminal case of KazPolmunai director Sergiu Corneguta has led to his imprisonment for 4 years, with the confiscation of his personal property.
Ascom Grup perceived these actions as a repression, provoked by the private letter President Voronin had sent to his Kazakhstan colleague.
It was announced at the news conference that in conformity with Article 328 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova, the Prosecutor General's Office initiated, last April 23, a legal action on suspicion of exceeding of authority. In the framework of this legal action, the Moldovan side is considering also the question of breaking up the Protocol of intention to organize the supply of Kazakhstan natural gas to this republic. The Protocol was signed between the Moldovan Government and the Ascom Grup on March 15, 2006.
The Ascom Grup administration is claiming that in the result of all this, the Republic of Moldova has lost the possibility of receiving natural gas from Kazakhstan at a price of US$76 per a thousand cubic meters, so Moldova had to buy fuel from the Russian Gazprom Concern at much higher prices, and the Republic of Moldova and its citizens have already suffered a damage of US$1.65 billion.
Infotag
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