MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax) - The French court ruling in favor of Roscosmos in a lawsuit filed by former Yukos shareholders regarding a freeze on $700 million owed to the state corporation sets a positive precedent, its deputy general director Sergei Savelyev told journalists on Tuesday.
"This is indeed an important landmark in the legal action around business relations between Arianespace and Roscosmos. At the same time, I believe that partners should not relax: there exist other companies - shareholders of Yukos," Savelyev said.
"Of course, having two positive precedents in the hands makes it much easier to fight them. However, one cannot rule out that the opponents of Arianespace and Roscosmos are guided not just by the desire to win and get the money but also inflict as much damage as possible in favor of other players on the space launch market," he said.
On April 12, the tribunal of grand instance in the French town of Evry delivered a verdict in favor of Roscosmos as part of a case over a freeze on the funds owed to it by the Cyprus-based offshore company, Veteran Petroleum, one of the shareholders of Yukos. The funds were paid by Arianespace to Russia for the work carried out under the 'Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center' program.
This is already the second such verdict: in January 2016, a similar ruling was made on a freeze done by another Cyprus-based Yukos shareholder, Hulley Enterprises, Roscosmos said.
"Thus, Roscosmos, jointly with Arianespace, made yet another step towards fully overcoming the uncertainty that existed around the financial prospects of the 'Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center' project and inflicted palpable damage both to the Russian and French interests in the field of commercial space launches," the state corporation said.