NORDIA wins investment dispute on behalf of the Lithuanian state against the Russian region of Kaliningrad

Partner, Niels Schiersing, head of international litigation and arbitration in NORDIA, recently headed a team of lawyers from NORDIA and NORDIA Baublys & Partners acting on behalf of Lithuania in an investment dispute brought before a very seasoned international panel of arbitrators in ICC arbitration in Paris.

In the dispute initiated by the Russian region of Kaliningrad against Lithuania asserting that Lithuania had breached an investment treaty between Russia and Lithuania. The Kaliningrad Region contended that Lithuania had expropriated a piece of property belonging to Kaliningrad region without compensation since Lithuanian courts had allowed a Cypriot company to seize the property based on the New York Convention of the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration awards.

In the present case, an award made by an arbitration tribunal under the UNCITRAL rules had awarded THE Cypriot company a substantial sum and when trying to enforce this award in Lithuania the Lithuanian courts found no such defects that enforcement could be denied.

The tribunal in the investment dispute according to the ICC rules held that only the Lithuanian courts were competent to decide on the enforcement question and thus dismissed the claim by the Kaliningrad Region.