The Prosecutor General's Office has requested that the Wintershall lawsuit be suspended in The Hague.

The Prosecutor General's Office filed a lawsuit in a Moscow COURT seeking to prohibit Germany's Wintershall Dea from suing RUSSIA in the Hague International Arbitration Court. Under the anti-suit injunction, the company, its lawyers, and the arbitrators could be fined €7.5 billion.

The Prosecutor General's Office filed a lawsuit against the German company Wintershall Dea and three foreign arbitrators (previously reported by RBC) seeking to prohibit the company from continuing its proceedings against the Russian Federation in international commercial arbitration at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands, a source familiar with the lawsuit told RBC. Another source familiar with the plaintiffs' arguments confirmed this.

The claim was filed with the Moscow Arbitration Court in defense of the interests of the Russian Federation. The interested parties listed are Wintershall Dea, the law firm Aurelius Cotta, which represents Wintershall, and the three arbitrators appointed to hear the dispute—Charles Poncet, Hamid Gharavi, and Olufunke Adekoya. The Ministry of Energy, Gazprom, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) are also included as third parties.

According to Russian law, if Wintershall Dea disobeys a potential Russian court order prohibiting the continuation of the proceedings in a foreign arbitration, it could be liable for an amount equal to the financial claims filed against the Russian party abroad. Since Wintershall's total claims against Russia amount to at least €7.5 billion, the plaintiffs are asking the court to award Russia the same €7.5 billion in the event of non-compliance with the Russian court order, according to one of RBC's sources. Moreover, this amount could be jointly and severally recovered from the appointed arbitrators if they continue or otherwise support the arbitration proceedings against Russia.

On what basis was the claim filed?

The claim was filed under Articles 248.1 and 248.2 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of Russia, which were amended in 2020. These provisions allow Russian courts to assume exclusive jurisdiction in foreign disputes involving Russian entities subject to unilateral sanctions . Such entities may simultaneously request a Russian court to prohibit the foreign applicant from initiating or continuing proceedings in a foreign court or arbitration tribunal. Russian courts have upheld petitions by sanctioned companies to transfer proceedings with counterparties from unfriendly countries to Russia.

Article 248.1 of the Arbitration Procedure Code may be applied in cases where Western sanctions create "obstacles to access to justice" for a Russian person in a foreign court or arbitration tribunal. In this case, the Russian Federation is effectively recognized as such a person. The plaintiffs argue that the imposition of sanctions against Russia is sufficient to conclude that access to justice abroad is restricted. "The imposition of restrictive measures by foreign states against the Russian Federation, motivated by political motives, cannot but create doubts as to whether the relevant dispute will be heard in the territory of a foreign state in compliance with fair trial guarantees, including those related to judicial impartiality," the statement explains.

How the Prosecutor's Office Assesses Wintershall's Conduct

In 2024 , the German company initiated two arbitration proceedings in the PCA against the Russian Federation, citing "asset expropriation." In Russia, Wintershall Dea was one of the financial investors in Nord Stream 2, was a shareholder in the Nord Stream gas pipeline operator (15.5%), owned 25.01% of the Achim Development project jointly with Gazprom, and, together with Gazprom and the Austrian company OMV, managed the Severneftegazprom joint venture (Yuzhno-Russkoye field). In January 2023, Wintershall announced its intention to leave Russia.

The company's claims are far-fetched and unfounded, says a source familiar with the plaintiffs' arguments: Gazprom and Wintershall had successfully cooperated for 17 years, but in 2022, Wintershall decided to "join the illegal sanctions of the collective West, imposed with the aim of inflicting a strategic defeat on the Russian Federation."

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a notice from the law firm Aurelius Cotta on behalf of Wintershall Dea, regarding the opening of arbitration proceedings against Russia. "The dispute was initiated citing provisions of the Energy Charter Treaty, which the Russian Federation has neither ratified nor implemented. The corporation's total claims amount to at least €7.5 billion," a source told RBC.

"A review of the arguments presented in the arbitration notice revealed them to be far-fetched and untrue. They concealed circumstances of successful commercial cooperation for over 17 years. However, in 2022, Wintershall decided to terminate it and join the illegal sanctions," a source told RBC, retelling the plaintiffs' arguments.

Western sanctions were intended to inflict economic damage on Russia and "force the widest possible range of international trade participants to abandon profitable operations in Russia," says a source familiar with the lawsuit. "Wintershall, for its part, openly demonstrated its acceptance and support of the aforementioned sanctions. Moreover, it has begun implementing them. To this end, it abandoned commercial operations in Russia solely for political, not economic, reasons, including to the detriment of the interests of its shareholders and investors," he points out, recalling that the company publicly condemned Russia's actions, announced its withdrawal from the Russian market, and unilaterally terminated its cooperation with Gazprom. "Thereby, to the detriment of itself, its projects, and Russia's national interests, it created real threats of natural and man-made emergencies, and now it is distorting the circumstances and portraying itself as the victim," he recounts the plaintiffs' arguments.

Why the prosecutor's office points to the bias of the court and arbitrators

The PCA's activities in The Hague have lost their neutrality and impartiality. This is due to the fact that "the PCA's key senior officials publicly support the Kyiv regime and condemn the Russian Federation's protective actions," notes an RBC source familiar with the content of the lawsuit.

"Proceedings involving the PCA create significant restrictions on the Russian Federation's procedural rights. The PCA is not a neutral body for the Russian Federation. Continuing the proceedings initiated through the PCA directly violates and infringes on Russia's rights," he explained.

In turn, the arbitrators appointed by the PCA—Charles Poncet, Hamid Gharavi, and Olufunke Adekoya—are, according to the plaintiffs, "agents of influence and hostages of Western sanctions." For example, Poncet, a Swiss citizen, "has established himself on the anti-Russian front," repeatedly participating in arbitration awards against Russia (specifically, he served on the Yukos arbitration panel, which awarded Russia over $50 billion). Poncet was deliberately chosen by Wintershall because he makes "exclusively anti-Russian decisions," a source familiar with the arguments presented in the lawsuit told RBC. Arbitrator Adekoya, meanwhile, "has been under British and American influence since birth, which has shaped her anti-Russian convictions over a long period of time."

RBC sent inquiries to Wintershall, the offices of lawyers Ponce, Adekoya, Garavi, the law firm Aurelius Cotta, the Ministry of Energy, and Gazprom.