Finland seizes $4.25 billion in Russian assets as part of the Naftogaz case

Documents from a Finnish court show that the court ordered the confiscation of assets worth $4.25 billion owned by Russia and located in Finland at the request Naftogaz. The Finnish Enforcement Authority confirmed it was executing this order.

Since 2016, Naftogaz has taken legal action against Russia to seek compensation for the expropriation by Moscow of Naftogaz's property during Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The Kremlin announced that Russia will contest the confiscation of Finnish property.

"We will certainly contest this in court." The Russian Federation will always defend its property rights, and we will do everything in our power to protect them," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

In April 2023, a tribunal in The Hague ordered Russia to compensate Naftogaz for the assets it had seized in Crimea by paying $4.22 billion in addition to interest and legal fees. However, Moscow has yet to do so.

A court ruling seen by revealed that the District Court of Helsinki ordered Russian Federation assets worth up to 4,25 billion dollars in Finland to be confiscated on 13 August to secure Naftogaz Group receivables.

Finland's National Enforcement Authority (National Enforcement Authority) said that it has executed the court order and frozen Russian assets by seizing and confiscating them, but did not immediately provide details on the assets.

Chief district bailiff Aki Viratanen, in an email to the chief district bailiff, said that the value of assets subjected to the measures was significant.

Naftogaz announced on Sunday that the assets frozen in Finland include "real estate and assets worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars".

The group said in a press release that "it is also the first publically known successful asset freezing outside Ukraine for the enforcement of arbitral awards filed by Ukrainian firms against Russia in 2014 for the expropriation property in Crimea."

The Russian Embassy in Finland has sent a letter to the Finnish Foreign Ministry expressing "a strongly protested" against these measures, and asking for reconsideration.

The embassy said that it received from the Finnish Enforcement Authority a list of more than 40 properties that were seized on October 29.

The confiscated property included diplomatic properties and residences of diplomats.

It said that "since they are used to represent the embassy and for official purposes, they are protected by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations as well as the Finnish legislation."

(source: Reuters)