According to Strana Rosatom, the in-house publication of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, Director General Alexey Likhachev said a ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration had found in its favour on the legality of the termination of the contract.
The ruling has not been published by the International Chamber of Commerce. According to a report by the Reuters news agency, “Fennovoima said the tribunal found that it had not been entitled to terminate the contract, but that it was entitled to receive reimbursements of advance payments and interest”.
Fennovoima signed the plant supply contract for Hanhikivi with Rusatom Overseas – Rosatom’s nuclear power plant exports subsidiary – in December 2013. Rosatom offered to build a plant using a 1,200 MWe AES-2006 VVER under a fixed-price contract. The Hanhikivi project was owned by Fennovoima, majority owned (66%) by Voimaosakeyhtiö SF, a Finnish company with shareholders including major Finnish corporations and several local energy companies. The remaining 34% is held by RAOS Voima Oy, the Finnish subsidiary set up in 2014 by Rosatom for the purpose of buying a share in the company.
On 2 May 2022 Fennovoima announced its decision to terminate the engineering, procurement and construction contract “due to RAOS Project’s significant delays and inability to deliver the project”. On 24 May it withdrew its construction licence application for the planned plant.
Rosatom says that the arbitration court said that at the time of the contract termination, “the project was still progressing, and Rosatom companies were making progress toward obtaining a licence to construct the nuclear power plant”.
In the Strana Rosatom report, Likhachev said: “Today’s victory is important, but not final. We will continue to prove our case regarding the Finnish project in various courts.”
