COURT RETURNS TO MOLDOVAN GOVERNMENT THE REQUEST ON TERMINATING AGREEMENT ON CHISINAU AIRPORT CONCESSION

The court returned to the Moldovan Government the request on concession of the Chisinau International Airport, signed by the Government with the Avia-Invest company in 2013. The court motivates this decision by some inaccuracies in the request, submitted by the Public Property Agency (PPA) on behalf of the Government.

The court provided to the plaintiff 20 days for removing these shortcomings.

“The PPA was given a reasonable period of time from the date of getting the above-mentioned conclusion for removing shortcomings, enumerated in its explanatory part. In case if the applicant does not remove the established shortcomings in time, the request will be declared unacceptable. The conclusion cannot be challenged apart, but only with the final conclusion on declaring the request as unacceptable”, says the conclusion, signed by judge Marcel Gandrabur on January 14.

Earlier, President Igor Dodon accused the previous Government of Maia Sandu of the fact that it failed to take proper measures for terminating the agreement for preventing the Avia-Invest shares to other investors. As a result, the company shares have twice been transmitted; currently the main shareholder of the Chisinau airport concessioner is Russian businessman Alexei Goncharenko.

In her turn, Maia Sandu stated that the concession agreement was challenged in court back on September 20, 2019, but the court has not reacted to the Government’s request. The opposition accused the current Cabinet of Ministers of the intention to renounce the request on canceling the airport concession agreement. This happened after Prime Minister Ion Chicu demanded that until February 1 the Public Property Agency and profile ministries to check how the Avia-Invest is fulfilling its investment commitments.