MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The Sukhoi company will not send its SU-30MK multi-role fighter plane to the Farnborough air show in Great Britain, to avoid having the plane seized under a court suit filed by Swiss company Noga, Sukhoi PR department's chief Yuri Chervakov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
"Our company planned to demonstrate the SU-30MK multifunctional fighter at the Farnborough air show but due to a threat that the plane might be seized by the Swiss company Noga the Sukhoi leadership made a decision not to send the plane to Great Britain," Chervakov said.
He noted that the Noga company problem cannot be solved by the Sukhoi company for the case concerns a state debt if it exists.
"Until the country solves the problem enterprises will remain its debtors. Any demonstration of Russian equipment abroad not only the military one will be related with the threat of arrest," Chervakov stressed.
At the same time he pointed out that the Sukhoi company showed many times its planes in South-East Asia, in particular, in Singapore, Malaysia, China and no attempts to arrest the aircraft were made.
Noga demands that the Russian government pay back USD63m for food and commodities that the company supplied to Russia in 1991 and 1992. The company claims that it has not been paid for the food and commodities.
Noga has made several attempts at seizing Russian aircraft and other state-owned assets abroad. The first attempt was made at the Le Bourget air show in France in June 2001 when the company tried to seize aircraft of the Sukhoi and MIG corporations.
MIG decided not to exhibit its latest MIG-29MRCA multifunctional fighter and IL-103 multipurpose plane at the ILA- 2002 international aerospace show in Berlin. MIG leaders said back then that Noga's actions amounted to legal terrorism. The flight of two Russian SU-30 Flanker fighters to America across the North Pole is suspended for the same reason.