The US Corporation has filed a court petition for seizing the floating platform.
Last week (April 4), the Boeing Commercial Space Company (BCSC) and the Boeing Company filed a lawsuit with a California court, as the “Izvestiya” informs. The issue of dispute became the sale by the Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) “Energia” of the platform for launching space vehicles “Sea Launch”.
As the edition remarks, the Sea Launch, the RSC “Energia” and the Boeing did not comment on the current situation.
We shall recall, the Mediasat previously featured that the “Sea Launch” would be sold, but the new owner’s name was not announced. A bit later, it became known that it was Vladislav Filev, who owns a share in the airline company S7 Group.
The disputes between the two companies arose due to the violation of the Agreement on Setting up the Sea Launch (1995) and the Agreement on Guarantees and Security (1996). Under the terms of agreements, if any party takes credit funds for the project, so each shareholder shall assume responsibility proportional to the share. The biggest share of 40% was owned by the BCSC, 20% was held by Aker Kvaerner (Norway), 25% held by the RSC “Energia”, 10% held by the “Yuzhmash” Plant, and 5% held by the Design Bureau “Yuzhnoe”. So in 2004, the company Sea Launch took out a loan of USD 270 million against the Boeing and the Kvaerner guarantees, and a year later it contracted another USD 200 million. We shall remark that all shareholders were bound to sign both loan agreements.
In 2009, when the project remained suspended, the Boeing desired to give it up. To do this, the company had to pay off debts amounting to USD 448 million, of which USD 179 million were subject to be paid to the company itself. The Kvaerner paid off its debts before 2010. But the RSC “Energia” and the “Yuzhmash” did not agree with that state of things and refused to repay their financial liabilities. The RSC “Energia”, in turn, decided to acquire the “Odyssey” launching platform itself and the command ship.
The RSC “Energia” wanted to challenge the previous agreements on the shareholders’s liabilities both in the Moscow Region Arbitration Court (the company lost the case), and in a US court (the claim was dismissed).
As from 2013, the California District Court has been considering two claims from the Boeing and the BCSC: the first action against the RSC “Energia” and its “subsidiaries” Energia Overseas LLC and Energia Logistics Ltd for paying USD 222 million, and the second one is against the “Yuzhmash” Plant and the Design Bureau “Yuzhnoe” for paying USD 133 million.
According to the edition, late September of last year, the above US Court rendered a preliminary ruling, but it has been actually examining the relationship of the companies Energia Overseas LLC and Energia Logistics Ltd with the RSC “Energia”.
It is most likely that after getting wise of selling “Sea Launch”, the Boeing tried to stop the deal, as the judicial authority was authorized to seize the assets of the floating spaceport. We shall recall that the entire infrastructure is located in California.
