A Gazprom-Linked Company Files Lawsuit Against Two European Banks

According to Russian court documents, one of Gazprom's subsidiaries has filed a lawsuit worth "31 billion rubles" (equivalent to 348 million dollars) against "Deutsche Bank" and "Commerzbank" in Russian courts. As per the documents registered in the arbitration court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, the Russian company RusKhimAlyans, of which 50% is owned by Gazprom, is seeking to recover over 22 billion rubles from Deutsche Bank and over 8 billion rubles from Commerzbank. This court issued a ruling in January at the request of RusKhimAlyans, which is constructing a gas complex in the port of "Ust-Luga" on the Baltic Sea, to block nearly 500 million dollars of assets belonging to Linde, a German industrial gases company. Linde and Renaissance Heavy Industries signed an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the Ust-Luga gas complex project with Gazprom and its partners in 2021. However, Linde reported in May and June 2022 that it had suspended work on the contract due to EU sanctions imposed after the deployment of thousands of Russian soldiers to Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of plotting to attack the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine expressed satisfaction with the recent counteroffensive against the Russians. China canceled the visit of the EU's foreign policy chief without explanation. Two American lawmakers called for the return of Americans imprisoned abroad.