German utility giant Uniper (UN01.DE), which has been in financial trouble since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has launched an arbitration suit against Russia's Gazprom. The lawsuit is worth €11.6 billion:
- Uniper is in the process of being nationalized in a state buyout to survive the energy crisis. The company has estimated the cost of replacing Russian gas to date at about €11.6 billion;
- Uniper has charged the Russian company for undelivered gas volumes, according to a statement by CEO Klaus Dieter Maubach;
- The arbitration, according to Maubach's statement, will be negotiated under Swiss law and will take place in Stockholm. It will therefore not be conducted by an official body but will depend on both sides and the decisions of lawyers 'on neutral ground' along the lines of customary trials:
"This is about quantities of gas that were agreed upon in the contract with Gazprom, but were not delivered and for which we had to order replacements at extremely high market prices and still have to do so (...) We are pursuing these legal steps vigorously: We owe it to our shareholders, our employees and taxpayers." - Uniper's CEO commented on the situation.
- Gazprom's export arm has denied that it has violated the contract for gas supplies to Uniper and indicated that it does not recognize the legality of the German company's claims;
- According to Uniper, costs related to the lack of Russian gas will continue to rise until the end of 2024 although CEO Maubach hopes the company will return to profit as early as next year. In the first nine months of 2022, Uniper reported a net loss of nearly €40 billion, the highest in the history of German companies;
- The company also declared further steps to finally spin off Unipro's Russian business, put up for sale from mid-2021.
Uniper (UN01.DE) share price, M30 interval. On the chart, we can observe a bearish head-and-shoulders pattern with the formation realized erasing completely the euphoric 400% rise started in the first half of November. The main task for the bulls in the short term will be to overcome the 100-session average (black color), which is currently piercing around EUR 4.6 per share. Source: xStation5
