On October 22, the Moscow Arbitration Court upheld the claim of the State Transport Leasing Company (STLC) against the liquidators of 10 of its Irish subsidiaries, Damien Murran and Julian Moroney.
STLC requested that the defendants, including not only the liquidators themselves but also the company’s now former Irish subsidiaries, be compelled to withdraw a total of 57 letters to foreign airports and Russian airlines Aeroflot, Rossiya, S7, Aurora, and Yamal. Vedomosti sent questions to them, as well as to the Ministry of Transport and STLC.
These letters were sent between the end of 2023 and the second half of 2024, and their essence boiled down to a demand to notify the liquidators of the landing or presence of an aircraft on the list at a given airport and to take measures to retain the aircraft. The airlines were required to cease operating these aircraft and hand them over to liquidators.
A total of 37 Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer aircraft are at issue. According to the case materials, these aircraft were owned by Irish subsidiaries of STLC and operated by the aforementioned Russian airlines. Moreover, STLC and the Irish subsidiaries had entered into pledge agreements with these aircraft as the subject matter.
Is STLC’s ownership of the aircraft correctly interpreted in the current dispute? Read the commentary by Nordic Star Senior Partner Andrei Gusev for Vedomosti.
The commentary is available at this link.